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softlynow

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by softlynow

  1. Lol. The post above yours. You know how we often complain that our various failed football coaches don’t effectively self-scout and shore up weaknesses? This is kinda like that.
  2. Does everyone not see that y’all are making BC’s point for him? Dems have varied opinions on lots of things, and are ready to compromise on a lot. But the base won’t let their electeds do that on GC.
  3. Where I practice every one of those cases already has a court-appointed attorney for every parent and an ad litem attorney for the child(ren). This may be a way to help poorer counties get attorneys on the appointment wheels who are actually somewhat competent to be on that wheel. I've witnessed opening statements in a CPS trial where a parent's attorney couldn't remember his client's name, did not know he was actually emplolyed, and whose grasp of the facts of the case seemed to stop with the general understanding that children tend to have parents. The changes for Sept. 1 seem simply be "Miranda for CPS," (which isn't a substantive change, just a notice/procedure change) and the requirement to report your name when calling in to CPS (which I think was correctly stated above as more to help keep CPS out of high-conflict, non-abuse/neglect custody matters). Which is to say that I don't see huge changes here. Y'all need to remember that the crazies that run this state still see CPS as an enemy because of CPS playing it straight in the Younger case (case worker testifying that the child ID'd as a girl, tesifying that the child was afraid of the father). Even though Abbott turned around and tried to weaponize CPS against families who listen to their children and follow the advice of medical professionals, the whackjobs do not see CPS as an agency that needs funding. In 2021 the legislature made it slightly harder to remove children from their parents. That bill was a mixed bag, and part of it was getting rid of marijuana as an almost instant neglect finding, part was because the foster system is overloaded and the last thing people want to do is spend money on things that matter, but the train was driven by CPS getting put in the crosshairs by the Texas GOPs brain-dead base. Phelan, I do believe, is trying to hold back the nutters from gutting CPS completely (unless you're kid is trans and you're acting appropriately).
  4. You just realized you’re not on Medicare?
  5. If you insist. I think y'all could convey that by simply replying to his posts with the following:
  6. There is enough talent to win 10 games and the conference. However, there are two huge causes for concern, IMHO: whether Sark is capable of putting it together enough to win that many, and whether the conference will allow us to win close games. I fully expect to be disappointed one way or another.
  7. Unfortunately I'm tied to heavily to this state to consider moving, but NC would be my first choice, vith Virginia a very close second. I just to have to hope that we can survive this Christofascist moment, and Texas government becomes simply mildly disappointing again.
  8. The warning signs that he was a piece of shit showed up all the way back on hornfans. His annual praising of Alabama celebrating a traitor to the Unites States being an obvious one.
  9. He's running for president (but really the VP spot or at least a cabinet post). That's all this is about. He needs headlines, and he's hoping the Biden admin. gives it to him. He wants Biden to send in troops or anything else that makes this a multi-day, above-the-fold, "BREAKING NEWS" story. The only way to get attention with Trump and Desantis dominating the horserace news is something spectacular. Whether he every had a moral center is now a closed question. It was never there. He's driven purely by ambition. The GOP base rewards these people and punishes those who signal their interested in things like the common good, helping people (even if it's Republican voters, themselves) or good government. Abbott is going where the political winds dictate, which is in no way an excuse. The correct move, for anyone similarly situated who has any sense of decency, is to govern effectively and accept that you're not likely to make the jump to the federal executive. Of course, you could write the above about most Republicans these days. If you are succeeding in the GOP right now at the state or national levels, you are a complete piece of shit, and probably always were.
  10. It’s not that they didn’t think judges could be corrupt, it’s that they never thought a political party would be so beholden to a morally-bankrupt and thoroughly ruthless ideology that the impeachment process would be completely impotent. The failure to remove Trump proves the current GOP has no compass save the one guiding them towards more money, whether it’s dollars, riyals, rubles or yuan. No constitution can guardrail that, and clearly liberals wouldn’t know how to use ‘em anyway.
  11. What needs to happen won’t. The norms of procedure and “the way things are done” always ultimately protect the corrupt and ruthless. This is just another area where only constitutional amendments or revolution can stop the slow descent to oligarchy.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. I'm not white knighting Anastasis here, but this terrible thread needs only one villain, and the OP is clearly it.
  17. Firearm deaths aren't the #1 cause of death for service members. Children don't need chaplains, they need advanced tactical training and equipment.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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."
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