Right, but the state has been shutting down DMV offices in certain districts. It doesn't take a genius to figure out this has been politically motivated.
Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
To be honest, bus service is just generally terrible in Ohio if your more than 5-10 miles outside of Columbus. I'd have to walk 3 miles to get to my closest bus stop. It's beyond being a mere inconvenience.
And yes, they've been shutting them down here in Ohio as well. They started doing it when they introduced the voter ID law here. It's pretty blatantly about screwing with the vote.
And yes, they've been shutting them down here in Ohio as well. They started doing it when they introduced the voter ID law here. It's pretty blatantly about screwing with the vote.
Yes. Because of the RealID act passed by Congress a few years back, you essentially need your Birth Certificate to show that you're an American citizen before you can get such an ID. (This was done because the Sept. 11th bombers had fake ID's on them, IIRC.)
Showing residency isn't all that difficult - you generally only need a tax bill or utility bill receipt to show that you're living at a particular address.
Birth Certificates, however, beyond the original one (which your parents bought after you were born, hopefully), cost anywhere from $20 per copy in Wisconsin to $22 in Texas to $15 in New York. That doesn't count processing fees or counter fees or anything like that.
The problem with the elderly is that registering births was not mandatory in many states until the era around World War I. This means that people who are in their 80's or 90's (or even older!) may not have a copy of their birth certificate available. And, if these individuals never worked outside of the home - for example, little old ladies who always grew up and lived on a farm in rural Iowa or something - they would never need a copy of the birth certificate for employment or any other reason.
And the funny thing is, they've not only been voting in every election since they were first eligible, but they've also probably been one of the poll workers at the voting precincts!
Unfortunately, it would be relatively easy for those people who do have financial clout to exert their influence in such a way as to depress the economy such that everyone from the middle class on down would have the unenviable choice of either getting on the public dole or being utterly ruined. Many of these bigwigs would probably think of it as nothing more than a routine hostile takeover, with their voting ability cornered the same way they might pick up enough outstanding stock to be able to control a board of directors. I am not in favor of this. For that matter (and for the record), I'm not in favor of permanently removing the right to vote from convicted felons, either, since that means removing a demographic's influence over politics is as easy as finding the infractions that demographic tends to commit, and then giving them felony status.
I see too many news stories which basically boil down to, "His right to vote was revoked because they knew from the start that he wouldn't have enough money to pay the fine instead."
--Patrick
Noooooo, this is more like saying, "We can't charge people to vote. Instead, we will pull strings to get a law passed that says people who burn wood for heat can't vote. And then we will pull other strings to maximize the number of people who can't afford electric or gas heat. Ha-haaa, that'll show them!"
It's an end run around the poll tax.
--Patrick
It's an end run around the poll tax.
--Patrick
S
SeraRelm
Remember, "unintended side effect" always means "happy coincidence."
GasBandit
Staff member
Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth, NJ, is currently being sued because a doctor on its staff denied HIV medication to a gay patient. The doctor’s reason? “This is what he gets for going against God’s will.”
The patient, Joao Simoes, says that when the hospital admitted him in August 2011, he was denied his medication by Susan V. Borga, M.D., from the Department of Behavioral Health and Psychiatry. Simoes had been put in the mental health wing, and though Borga is not named as a defendant, she certainly seems to be reason for the litigation.
After hearing that Simoes had contracted HIV from unprotected homosexual intercourse, Borga allegedly closed his file and walked out of the room. No nurses or other doctors were sent in to check on him or administer his medication. His sister was denied visitation rights as well. Finally, after three days, Simoes was able to contact his regular physician to ask about his medication. His doctor says that he had instruced Borga to give Simoes his medication. By this time, he had missed five doses. When Simoes’ doctor again spoke with Borga to ask why his patient wasn’t given the HIV meds, she allegedly stated, “You must be gay, too, if you’re his doctor.”
His sister was finally able to come and bring him the necessary meds. She left it at the nurses’ station where Simoes “witnessed his sister leave his medication with the nurses’ station and it was not until this time that the nurses, seeing that the plaintiff had witnessed his sister give his medication to the nurses, that the nurses eventually gave plaintiff his medication,” the complaint states.
Simoes seeks damages against the hospital and is represented by Kevin Costello with Costello & Mains of Mount Laurel, N.J.
So much for the Hippocratic oath. I guess the real irony here is that the motto for Trinitas says that they “provide service in a caring, personalized manner to all and serve as an advocate for those in greatest need.” I guess that they forgot the “unless you’re gay” part.
A thousand times THIS.
Yeah... this might be horrendously disgusting, but the fact that the story seems to originate solely from Courthouse News leaves me wary. Also, saw this pop up on Reddit earlier, and there's some stuff in the comments which has me keeping the pitchfork in the shed for the time being.
GasBandit
Staff member
David Axelrod says that nominating Marco Rubio as the GOP VP would be an “insult to Hispanics.” Sooo... what'd that make nominating Barack Obama for president?
China has condemned U.S. gun ownership as a human rights violation.
China has condemned U.S. gun ownership as a human rights violation.
An big middle finger to the south?
There's a key difference: Obama had to win his nomination and did it in the face of an experienced, well connected individual. The Republicans, on the other hand, seem to just pick minority/women on the sole basis that they belong to these groups. It's pandering, plain and simple.
This really does seem to be the current Republican thought process when it comes to minorities/women: "We have no hope of appealing to this voting block normally, so we'll just nominate someone FROM that group and hope that they don't notice that our policies are abhorrent to that group." It shows a lack of foresight; they need to change their policies to appeal to these voters, not give them token lip service. It's not like your fucking base are going to switch sides, if they have the same policies.
GasBandit
Staff member
Oh, please. The only thing anybody knew about Obama when his hat went in the ring for the nomination was how little we knew about him, and how clean and articulate Joe Biden thought he was (how's THAT for implied racism?). It's come slowly to light over the last 4 years that Obama's entire career was based on pandering of one form or another, especially to minority groups.
Again, the main difference is that Obama was picked by the members of his party in primaries. It was actually a pretty close race for awhile... I'm sure you don't need a reminder on how vicious it got towards the end.
VPs are picked after the fact, usually to fill a hole in the President's abilities or to attract more base. Hence why the Dems picked Biden: Old guy who's been in office for years that knew how shit got done (not that helped him *sigh*). The last Rep nominee was a last minute choice that was poorly vetted and was done entirely to attract women voters that didn't look too hard at her. The current front runner for them this year is looking to be the same thing, except for Hispanic voters.
I honestly expect to hear that Obama was "handled" just as much as Bush was by Cheney & Co. in the coming years, but we'll just have to wait for the tell all book about the presidency.
VPs are picked after the fact, usually to fill a hole in the President's abilities or to attract more base. Hence why the Dems picked Biden: Old guy who's been in office for years that knew how shit got done (not that helped him *sigh*). The last Rep nominee was a last minute choice that was poorly vetted and was done entirely to attract women voters that didn't look too hard at her. The current front runner for them this year is looking to be the same thing, except for Hispanic voters.
I honestly expect to hear that Obama was "handled" just as much as Bush was by Cheney & Co. in the coming years, but we'll just have to wait for the tell all book about the presidency.
GasBandit
Staff member
Actually, there were many people over the last few years saying Rubio should have been one of the contenders for the nomination from the get-go, he just didn't want to step up. Picking him seems less like "quick we need hispanics" and more like "we couldn't get him to run for president, maybe we can draft him to be veep." And then Axelrod screams "NO FAIR THAT SPIC IS OFF THE RESERVATION! Don't you know the greasers are OURS?!"
GasBandit
Staff member
Time is fleeting.
I don't think anyone is going to deny that Axelrod is being a Grade A douche bag right now.
It really seems like the "good" Republican candidates really drug their feet this year. None of the people that were being clamored for actually wanted to run against Obama, instead giving false platitudes and secretly planning to run in 2016. I'm actually more looking forward to that election than this one, if only because I want to see who the Dems run against the likes of Chris Christie and Rubio.
GasBandit
Staff member
It seems that way to me, too. Of course, I would be voting Johnson/Gray regardless, but it would have been interesting to see a ticket with Rubio and Christie on it (in either order), and watch what happens.
It comes off as "quick, we need Hispanics" when the candidate he would be running with took such a far right wing "ship 'em all back" position on illegal immigration that he lost all kinds of popularity with Hispanic voters. It being a wiser choice than "We'll pick Palin because Hillary voters will love a woman!" does not make it any less transparently political.
GasBandit
Staff member
It's politics. Everything is transparently political. It's not that Rubio's race is a non factor - it's that he's got way more cred and oomph than anybody else who was even in the running for the nomination, including the eventual nominee. He happens to be hispanic, which may also help. But to say that to nominate him is "an insult to hispanics" is to reveal one's own racism - that no matter how high you rise, no matter how impressive your experience or credentials, all that is overshadowed by race, according to Axelrod. Maybe if Rubio was a previously unknown junior senator with no real world experience and a penchant for absenteeism, there might be something to get insulted about.
Again, I don't think anyone is denying that Axelrod was being an immense douchebag when he said that.
I saw Johnson on last nights The Daily Show and I like (mostly) what I heard. They were discussing why people would vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate when the Libertarian candidate comes from the left of the Dems on social issues and the right of Republicans on fiscal ones. The answer is pretty simple (and I think they completely missed it), being that people don't vote for a candidate, they vote against a candidate. Being extreme on two fronts makes it awful hard to get people excited to be excited about the parts you really like when the parts you don't are so distasteful.
I'm at the point where I just don't care. The two main party candidates are milquetoast at best. Maybe this is what we need to shake up the system a bit.
I voted for Obama last time, but I can't deny that (so far) this time I'm somewhere in between ambivalent and voting-to-keep-Romney-out. I feel like the Presidents since 1st-term Bill (including 2nd-term Bill) really fell in line with the standard party (as in the party power structure, not the grass roots) line once in office (whatever they may have been like before), and since I have no confidence in either Romney or Obama standing against the party line I'd rather the Dem line right now over the Rep line.
(Gary Johnson is interesting, but I feel like I don't know enough about him at this time)
(Gary Johnson is interesting, but I feel like I don't know enough about him at this time)