Joe Biden Presidency thread *Please read OP - Threadbanned Users Added 4/5/21*

everlast75

Funny that many posters have disappeared now that the stupid furore over a simple fall from a bike has died down.

It is almost as if they had nothing constructive to contribute to this thread and just jumped on in to make **** jokes and glib comments.

Yeah_Right

Never mind.

Manic Moran

The list also tends to vary by year and exact definition.

From earlier this year.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2022/02/23/crime-in-america-study-reveals-the-10-most-dangerous-cities-its-not-where-you-think/?sh=999ece7710ae

1. St. Louis, Missouri
2. Jackson, Mississippi
3. Detroit, Michigan
4. New Orleans, Louisiana
5. Baltimore, Maryland
6. Memphis, Tennessee
7. Cleveland, Ohio
8. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
9. Kansas City, Missouri
10. Shreveport, Louisiana

From two years ago

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america/#:~:text=The%20violent%20crime%20rate%20in%20Baltimore%20is%201%2C859%20per%20100%2C000,people%20in%20Baltimore%20were%20murdered.

1. Detroit, MI
2. St Louis, MO
3. Memphis, TN
4. Baltimore, MD
5. Springfield, MO
6. Little Rock, AR
7. Cleveland, OH
8. Stockton, CA
9. Albuquerque, NM
10. Milwaukee WI

It seems to me that perhaps the better way of finding it out is an aggregate, see which names show up most often. For example, if St Louis and Baltimore keep showing up on top ten lists, then that's an indicator. If Chicago shows on one list but none of the others, the list is probably an outlier.

Overheal

SCOTUS brought in a 6-3 conservative ruling today that school voucher programs cannot exclude religious schools.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/06/21/supreme-court-schools-teaching-religion-cant-denied-state-aid/7219395001/

The liberal dissent regarded it as an erosion of the wall between church and state

IIRC, it regards a situation where Maine was not allowing vouchers to go to such schools even when those schools were the only school available in an area.

Overheal

So hard up for anti Biden content, Bartiromo reportedly solicited Dr Oz (a heart surgeon) to give a psychiatric analysis of a patient he had never interviewed (a violation of the Goldwater Rule)

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/foxs-maria-bartiromo-pushes-dr-oz-on-national-security-issue-youre-a-doctor-does-biden-have-dementia/

“Part of the hippocratic oath is you don’t doctor on people who don’t want your help. I’m not taking care of him. I can’t speak to that issue,” he said, then turning the conversation back to Biden’s policies, saying, “I don’t like the decisions he’s currently masking.”

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119231814#Comment_119231814

I think the liberals are wrong on this one.

This program was for districts which were too small/had too little population to run a high school. So, they sent vouchers to the parents, telling them "Find an accredited school. Can be public in the next district over, or private wherever. Use it to pay for the child's education". Basically, go on the open market, and buy something which does the job. It was not advocating religion, it was not advocating any specific religion. The parents were making the choice, a choice which had to be made because the State (well, district) wasn't providing the service itself.

However, the State excluded some service providers as eligible because they were religious, despite meeting the state standards of education. Any way you swing it, that's a discrimination based on religion. I would note that Maine's policy seems unusual. D.C's voucher program, now I look at the list, includes a whole bunch of very obviously religious-based schools like "Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School of the Nation’s Capital" or "Annunciation Catholic School"

Currently 14 States plus DC have a voucher program in place.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/tab4_7.asp#:~:text=The%20state%20provides%20a%20set,District%20of%20Columbia%20(D.C.).

Igotadose

No; if the state subsidizes these religious schools, before you know it we'll have the situation in Ireland where if you don't want your kid to be catechize, you still pay for it. If the only choice in your area in Maine is a religious school, fine, but the state shouldn't pay for it and you can lobby the state for bussing or remote learning or something. It's just an insidious way to inject religion into the classroom. Ask yourself, why are these communities underserved and why should taxpayers in Maine fund religious indoctrination? It's this voucher thing that's crap and a trick pulled by the right wing and widened by miscreant like Amway DeVos in her unlamented stint as SecEd.

Manic Moran

If that's a personal position, so be it, but I don't see a legal basis behind it. The State is may not advocate religion, or any specific religion. That does not mean, however, that the State must advocate secularity. Otherwise, for example, the chaplain's corps of the various military branches would be unconstitutional. Think of it, priests, accredited by their religions with a seminary (or equivalent) education, paid full time wages, by the State, to minister to the spiritual needs of soldiers. Egads! Now, their required duties are not defined on a religious basis, any soldier can go to any chaplain for support on any reason (they are often used as a confidential reporting system for crimes against the person, for example), but they wear a cross/tablet/crescent and they do hold services, on government time and on the government dime.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235266#Comment_119235266

No, chaplains are provided because soldiers are away from home and want to practice their religion. Their place in the military has been challenged in the past, but the SCOTUS found that the Establishment clause mandated that the government provide this: ". In 1985, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case of two Harvard Law School students who alleged that the Army chaplaincy was unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Second Circuit ruled that the Free Exercise Clause "obligates Congress, upon creating an Army, to make religion available to soldiers who have been moved to areas of the world where religion of their own denominations is not available to them."

https://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/academics/research/policy-review/2009v2/why-does-us-military-have-chaplains.htm

So, not a slippery slope at all. Public schools are not mandated in the Constitution. Separation of Church and State is, however. And as we know, various states are gunning for public schools, most recently Texas in statements by Abbott using the upcoming hideous Roe decision and the legal theory Alito pulled out of his sphincter as a pretext:

"In the immediate aftermath of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Wednesday that the Lone Star State is ready to challenge a 40-year old decision requiring Texas to provide free public education to the children of undocumented immigrants.

In an appearance on The Joe Pags Show reacting to the news on the SCOTUS leak, Gov. Abbott specifically referred to the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe.

“I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler v. Doe was issued many decades ago,” Abbott told host Joe Pagliarulo."

https://lawandcrime.com/supreme-court/after-scotus-leak-texas-gov-greg-abbott-says-its-time-to-resurrect-and-challenge-ruling-which-allowed-children-of-undocumented-immigrants-to-attend-public-school/

Manic Moran

That's 2nd Circuit, not SCOTUS, but it's also worth considering that the chaplain's corps was created when the US Army was fighting in the US, not abroad. I doubt Congress has much of a concern about tending to its ministerial needs when abroad, yet the current House chaplain is a presbyterian, the Senate's chaplain is a Seventh-Day-Adventist.

The DC Court of appeals is equally ranked, and it's also worth noting their unanimous ruling in 2019 that Congress could mandate that the opening prayer every day be religious and that a secular/aetheistic person could be prohibited from making that secular 'prayer'. (That legislature could start each day with prayer -was- a SCOTUS decision, back in the 80s). https://rollcall.com/2019/04/19/atheist-prayers-can-be-barred-by-house-chaplain-appeals-court-says/

Overheal

Y'all heard conservatives calling for a gas tax holiday right?

I mean I've had arguments with South Carolinians who think the reason that gas has gone from $2/gal to $4.30/gal is because during that same time, our state gas tax has gone from... 26 cents per gallon, to a whopping 26 cents per gallon. They think if we got rid of that 26 cents per gallon, all our troubles would go away (and certainly not down the road, oh no)

But now Biden has suggested a federal tax holiday lasting 3 months for gas, and suddenly my twitter feed is awash with high profile republicans and several GOP special interest accounts denouncing gas tax holidays

eg.

https://twitter.com/MarshaBlackburn/status/1539628138770186240?s=20&t=rxsIg37RIuoxaiFKanEfrA

They keep pivoting to demanding socialism bail them out by handing oil fields over to oil companies that already control over 90% of proven reserves anyway

Igotadose

I wouldn't follow that moron Blackburn if you held a gun to my head. And even then it'd have to be a big one. Totally venal politician who is a danger to the Republic. A science 'no nothing' that runs the Senate Science committee when the GQP has the majority.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119236020#Comment_119236020

I don't, I follow people who follow this crap for the sake of knowledge.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235428#Comment_119235428

That article mentioned that the 2d circuit in fact references a SCOTUS decision, Abbington v. Schemp, which outlawed religious devotional exercises in public schools (would that Ireland had such a law...but anyway.) That Abbington decision included a dissent from Potter Stewart who mentioned the whole Chaplain/overseas thing.

And, as a friend of mine said, "Now that religious institutions can be subsidized by the State, time for them to start paying some taxes." This is said tounge-in-cheek, obviously, but is amusing nevertheless. As the conspiracy theorists say, "Think about it!"

And, chaplains and their role in the military is a digression from this dreadful decision. The State really shouldn't fund religious institutions. Not for a minute should you believe the lie that the funding won't be used for more than 'instruction.' Of course it will, and there'll be zero accounting esp. if these are RCC schools. The RCC doesn't behave any better in the US than in Ireland, the US just has more of a rule of law than Ireland does, so priests get away with less.

BruteStock

The hearings mean nothing when the current Potus can't even ride a push bike or string a sentence together ..lol wut! 🤨

https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1539581635154350081

A far more serious issue currently than the one of many riots that took place two years ago is the pandemic of drug over doses. Mostly by fentanyl that gets trafficked through nonexistent border controls thanks to the abysmal Biden administration. Add in Portlands decision to decriminalize drugs which has has turned the place into Hamsterdam and its correct to say that Democrat policies are literally killing people.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/americans-suffer-deadly-fentanyl-overdoses-record-numbers/story?id=84146782

https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-overdose-deaths-reached-a-record-in-2021-fueled-by-fentanyl-11652277600

#RedWaveComing 👌

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237190#Comment_119237190

Where is this evidence of nonexistent border control?

extra gravy

Dear oh dear, some serious morons pop up when you put that silly little hashtag into Twitter. Remind me not to do that again.

extra gravy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237294#Comment_119237294

Arrests at an all time high = nonexistent border control. This is the "logic" you're dealing with.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237190#Comment_119237190

Oregon decriminalized based on a public vote, no? In general it's been viewed as pretty successful. Locking people up for possession of small quantities of drugs is a waste of resources and likely creating career criminals in process.

In relation to the fentanyl crisis. That was equally a problem when Trump was president. It was at 70k for opioid deaths in 2020 and the rate has been on a constant curve upwards. By your logic, since Trump was tougher on the border, there should have been a downward trend. There was not. I have no idea what the solution to the crisis is but it's actively been developing since the early 2000s. Treatment facilities probably.

https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

Btw, you must be outraged by Rudy Giuliani's role in the crisis? He was doing plenty of pr for Purdue when the scandal originally came to light.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237314#Comment_119237314

Exactly.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237190#Comment_119237190

Uhuh.

everlast75

"A far more serious issue currently than the one of many riots that took place two years ago is the pandemic of drug over doses."

Yeah - nice try!

It need not be either/or.

January 6th is a big ****ing deal, especially where 45 is still lurking in the background, offering pardons in the hope people won't cooperate, showing no remorse and worse still, threatening that he would do it again. He needs to be dealt with, along with all of his enablers. Or quite frankly, America is ****ed!

By all means, drugs in the states is a huge issue, but don't for one moment think that Jan 6th should be brushed under the carpet because of that or that people will fall for your "oh look, uh caravan from the south" tactics.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237190#Comment_119237190

Biden has a stutter. Aren’t you a great lad mocking him for it.

Overheal

News developing today after SCOUTS 6-3 conservative majority strikes down a NY law that required applicants to show cause for needing a concealed carry permit. DOJ issued a statement disagreeing with the ruling.

“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s conclusion that the Second Amendment forbids New York’s reasonable requirement that individuals seeking to carry a concealed handgun must show that they need to do so for self-defense. The Department of Justice remains committed to saving innocent lives by enforcing and defending federal firearms laws, partnering with state, local and tribal authorities and using all legally available tools to tackle the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our communities.”

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-statement-supreme-court-ruling-new-york-state-rifle-pistol-association-inc

NY has indicated it will continue it's current permitting process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WOw0qNNDBU

Manic Moran

Thomas has been itching to write that opinion for a few years. I was waiting for the ruling not to see if the law would be overturned, as it was fairly obvious it would be, but more to see what sort of a smackdown he was going to give the lower courts, as he had indicated in the past that he wasn't happy with the directions they were going. He certainly gave them additional guidance. On the basis of past statements, I'm not surprised that Gorsuch joined him.

I also note they specifically mentioned the idea that "OK, you must have an objective licensing structure. But it must not be so overbearing with so many hoops and delays that it becomes unreasonable for the typical person", and also "No, you can't declare Manhattan to be a 'sensitive area'". Almost as if they've been paying attention to the realities on the ground.

"NY has indicated it will continue it's current permitting process."

Yes. The case was remanded for a judgement compatible with the SCOTUS ruling. Until the lower court makes that judgement, there is no obligation for NY to change its structure. Same with the other States affected, depending on their district they may have even more time.

Overheal

Given the irregularly high density of Manhattan during the day I'm not sure why it shouldn't be regarded as sensitive to collateral risks from use of firearms.

Manic Moran

No more so than that people are sensitive to problems of crime.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119241168#Comment_119241168

You think increasing the number of firearms in Manhattan will reduce crime?

Manic Moran

Nope. But neither will it increase it. There have been plenty of studies showing that moving to a “carry” concept has had no statistically significant effect on crime, one way or the other. That argument has been brought up and addressed in the 7th Circuit, Moore v Madigan, a case cited in today’s opinion.

The difference is at the micro, not the macro level. What happens to that one individual who becomes the victim of the crime is unrelated to the citywide statistics at large.

y0ssar1an22

does this ruling mean that anyone in america (that is not prohibited from carrying a gun due to other reasons) is now allowed to conceal carry?

i dont really know what america can do about the 2nd amendment. its so far gone now at this stage.

i watched a youtube vid earlier...the POV is that the 2nd amendment isn't an actual right to bear arms. but rather the right to carry a gun is as natural as breathing and the 2nd amendment (along with the 14th) limit the power of the government to withdraw this natural right.