Dallas has had homeless street people for as long as I can remember, but it seems markedly worse in the last 5 or 6 years. It’s still nowhere near as bad (in my personal observation) as big cities with much colder winter climates, e.g., Chicago, D.C., and NYC. Living under an overpass is, I suspect, appreciably more comfortable when the temperature bottoms out at 40 degrees versus 20 degrees. But there are very few people who wouldn’t happily take affordable housing over either low temperature.
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“I’m dating Texas now, you dumb bitch – she’ll never leave me!”
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Say it, brother!
Trump’s tweet with the picture of what is not Pelosi’s home with the wall around it is now unavailable
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Haha I was already at that B&B years ago. Husband and wife both charming but his Montreal accent was so thick even the French from France couldn’t quite figure it out. I can tell you there’s few things quietly funnier than French people tasting maple syrup on pancakes for the first time and allowing as how it isn’t bad. You want to set up in Montreal tell me how I can help, I love that town.
So. Anyway. Yeah, as a kind of personal Occam’s razor I have what I guess I could call Matty’s flashlight, which is simply to always ask, if you’re perplexed, what’s different? That’s often enlightening. We have different election results, but our measures say we shouldn’t really. So what’s different?
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Russia is a mafia state.
Very few Russians are in that mafia.
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They all start looking at each other with deep suspicion.
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Lol…fucking misgivings? Scuttling the Constitution…the Republic…dum dee dee dee dee dum…it’s just another day…!
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I’m a Nittany Lion in Michigan but believe me, I support removing this guy.
I truly believe that all they want is their Dem colleagues to not have a bad opinion about them as they sell their country down the river. Wasn’t that the motive of Jeff Flake with regard to his good friend Chris Coons?
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Unless they are publicly to vote against McConnell’s jury tampering moves, and his refusal to call witnesses as well as for the myriad subpoenaed documents the WH refuses to run over, these 10 Republicans “misgivings” are 100% worthless.
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Unfortunately, “…anywhere from five to ten…” sounds like nonsense to me.
It may very well be true that “a number” of GOP senators have misgivings, but Blumenthal may be putting his own bias onto what that means.
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I’m embarrassed by the US Senate’s scrambling to perform a constitutionally mandated task. It reminds me of that late-90s business advice book “Who Moved My Cheese?”, a pep talk on dealing with changing business conditions. Two basic rules were that the cheese always gets moved and cheese goes stale. Democrats need to focus on the changing impeachment conditions (public sentiment for removal is still rising), i.e. where the cheese will be, and the time-decaying of options as senators facing reelection pass their primary dates (e.g. the CO primary is in early March, so the GOP have to watch Gardner get hammered either way on his impeachment vote and accept the loss). Obviously, there is no convenient time to hold an impeachment trial, but everything starts to be locked down by spring.
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While I agree the REPUBLICAN’s faux concerns have no real value in a voting situation - TALKING about their expressed concerns - does have a ‘marketing’ value. As other’s have pointed out - having this narrative “Privately, a number of R’s are… concerned, troubled, - whatever” works in the Dem’s favor. EVEN IF IT’S NOT TRUE.
Gaslighting works. If it makes the orange turd-blossom foam at the mouth - or get closer to stroking out - or makes any single ‘R’ Think about voting for impeachment - or more likely, ‘spending more time with their family’ in the fall - or makes an R voter reluctant to support their candidate - then sure - why not circulate this talking point?
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Oh, he can and has done a few thing during his many years in the halls of congress, for his benefactors, for sure not his constituents. As someone who spent high school, college and at least 25 of my 45+ working years residing in NY (Upstate), I watched his career, it did/does not impress me at all.
Has zero to do with him in is “leadership” role but everything to do with his Congressional record
Such as 55% support for Impeaching his ass.
What if…Team Trump decided to take control of the polling process?
By flooding the phone lines with so much telemarketing that people block calls or simply do not answer pollsters.
Team Trump is a far better well-oiled machine than people realize. Otherwise the near-complete compromise of nearly every GOP CongressCritter would not be a reality. In fact, the lunacy of Trump himself has, itself, a function (enervation and malaise among those not on board with Trump).
Every social institution in the United States has been penetrated by Team Trump, some, greater than others…The Federal Judiciary was always a goal, for example. Once we realize and understand this, we can better respond going forward. Fortunately, we are an independent-minded people and they are not as far along as they would need to be.
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“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” - Gary Kasparov
And it’s not enough to state the truth as defense against their lies. We MUST go on the offense. Keep ‘flooding the zone’ with enough truth - that they’re constantly defending themselves.
Controlling the narrative is controlling the ball.
“If you’re explaining - you’re losing” - is a great way to structure that. The media has built their financial base on giving more airtime to R politico’s and talking heads. We can’t change that overnight. BUT - we can change WHY they are on the programs. Instead of giving the R’s time to establish a narrative and controll the ball - ALL DEM politicians, and the limited number of news outlets that can - should be ‘attacking’ their positions.
"Some people say - " whatever. It’s how THEY control the ball. We can use this.
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The crazy SF real estate market did enable me to finance a comfortable retirement – by selling my house (bought in '78, when the neighborhood was sketchy.) I realized that I could not afford to retire (even from a teaching salary) without taking in boarders.
Of course I’m no longer in California, but I am still 20 minutes from a good (regional airport)… and a commuter train ride to The Loop.
The problem with Prop 13 is that it protects corporations from rising taxes. Reagan gutted Pat Brown’s excellent school system (IMO the R’s first shot at their goal of dumbing down the hoi polloi).
We “old people” in my Bernal neighborhood would have been impoverished years ago and forced out had we had to pay property taxes based on “neighborhood valuations” instead of what we paid for our houses.
My property taxes doubled over the 40 years, but by the early 2000s, my new neighbors were paying $7K prop taxes; the people who bought my house will pay well over double that.
Prop 13 still is a protection for many, many older homeowners and even someone in my situation 25 years ago - still working - who found themselves in “expensive” neighborhoods as the years went by.
As to moving - at least a few counties have agreements to accept the tax paid in the “sending” county for people over 55.
One reason I left California (I’m 4th generation!!) was that there wasn’t anywhere to go that wasn’t either as expensive, hours away from everywhere, or Bakersfield.
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Perfect.
The irony is that the land value tax was invented in San Francisco by Henry George. In Denmark, not a cheap country, teachers in Copenhagen can at least afford to live near the school where they work. Indeed, the local commuting possibilities created by a rational tax system allow for citizens to do much of their commuting by bike or walking. Prop 13 created perverse incentives that even had Warren Buffet scratching his head.
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