American Politics IX: Winter is Coming

[Necroghastia]

And that is?

Water testing eqiipment.

And that tells you precisely and 100% everything that is in the water?

Moreover, how do you know it is accurate?

[American Legionaries]

What use is the government if it is the threat?

When is the government the threat ?
People accepted incredibly far-reaching measures to combat terrorism - from severe invasions of privacy at airports to allowing people be jailed and tortured without a trial. All because of something that killed about 3000 Americans. And you do not perceive the government as a threat for that.

Surely now that the USA faces a *real* threat; far less invasive measures like mask mandates and safe vaccines can also be enforced ?

Always.

I don't? Can you point to where I changed my mind?

Nope.

[San Lumen]

It’s not going to happen. It would be unethical and unconstitutional. No judge would uphold that.

It is not unconstitutional. We've done it before, to fight smallpox, and it was upheld in court.

We won the fight against smallpox. We're losing the fight against COVID, because of people like you.

We have never forcibly injected people against their will.

[American Legionaries]

Water testing eqiipment.

And that tells you precisely and 100% everything that is in the water?

Moreover, how do you know it is accurate?

Yes.

Because I trust the source of the equipment and chemicals, and have records that indicate such tests are accurate and consistent.

[Eahland]

I don't have any evidence of either condition. If some goon with a needle decides he's sticking it in me by force, I have no mechanism by which to determine what's in that needle.

Do you have any mechanism to determine what precisely is in your water supply?

I mean, not to support AL's paranoid nonsense, but not everyone is on municipal water. We used to have our own pump and filtration system to pull water direct out of Lake Champlain, though we abandoned it when the town water extended out to the west shore. It's a lot cheaper and easier to just let Les worry about that stuff than to do it ourselves.

[Fartsniffage]

It is not unconstitutional. We've done it before, to fight smallpox, and it was upheld in court.

We won the fight against smallpox. We're losing the fight against COVID, because of people like you.

We have never forcibly injected people against their will.

https://stacker.com/stories/21994/histo ... andates-us

You've been told that you are wrong about this before on multiple occasions. Why do you keep lying?

[San Lumen]

We have never forcibly injected people against their will.

https://stacker.com/stories/21994/histo ... andates-us

You've been told that you are wrong about this before on multiple occasions. Why do you keep lying?

There is a big difference between mandating it and forcibly administering a vaccine to someone if they refuse.

[Fartsniffage]

https://stacker.com/stories/21994/histo ... andates-us

You've been told that you are wrong about this before on multiple occasions. Why do you keep lying?

There is a big difference between mandating it and forcibly administering a vaccine to someone if they refuse.

Not really. If the threat is prison or a vaccine then force is being used. If it is an education or a vaccine then force is being used.

Not all force involves being strapped to a bed and jabbed.

[San Lumen]

There is a big difference between mandating it and forcibly administering a vaccine to someone if they refuse.

Not really. If the threat is prison or a vaccine then force is being used. If it is an education or a vaccine then force is being used.

Not all force involves being strapped to a bed and jabbed.

And we are never going to imprison people In this country for not getting a vaccine.

[Neutraligon]

COVID thread is over there----->

[San Lumen]

https://www.wcia.com/illinois-capitol-n ... ster-says/

Incumbent Illinois Governor J.B Pritzker leads all his current Republican challengers. He ranges from 52 to 55 percent depending upon the candidate.

Pritzker should have no problem winning a second term.

[American Legionaries]

Not really. If the threat is prison or a vaccine then force is being used. If it is an education or a vaccine then force is being used.

Not all force involves being strapped to a bed and jabbed.

And we are never going to imprison people In this country for not getting a vaccine.

That's kinda the end all be all of a mandate isn't it? Unless we go one step further to hurting or even killing folks.

[Rusozak]

https://www.wcia.com/illinois-capitol-news/pritzker-enjoys-comfortable-lead-over-gop-field-rabine-early-republican-frontrunner-pollster-says/

Incumbent Illinois Governor J.B Pritzker leads all his current Republican challengers. He ranges from 52 to 55 percent depending upon the candidate.

Pritzker should have no problem winning a second term.

I would imagine as much. The majority of us are satisfied with his handling of the pandemic and other events over the past few years. Most that aren't already wouldn't have voted for him simply because of the (D). At least that's my reading on how the state feels.

[Forsher]

NSG is still devoid or rightwingers so... Eric Adams, borderline fascist?

Also, views on Wonkette?

[Uiiop]

NSG is still devoid or rightwingers so... Eric Adams, borderline fascist?

Also, views on Wonkette?

Liberal dc gossip is still cringe dc gossip website. We get enough of that with every other media group.

[The Jamesian Republic]

NSG is still devoid or rightwingers so... Eric Adams, borderline fascist?

Also, views on Wonkette?

I don’t really know much about Eric Adams except, he is mayor of NYC and I think was a cop.

[American Legionaries]

NSG is still devoid or rightwingers so... Eric Adams, borderline fascist?

Also, views on Wonkette?

I don’t really know much about Eric Adams except, he is mayor of NYC and I think was a cop.

That's the reference, he was a cop. Which being an officer in the NYPD is definitely something I would hold against him.

[Kowani]

Massachusetts takes on the housing crisis

Build up or pay up.

That is the message Massachusetts is sending to 175 cities and suburbs in the Boston area, as a bill passed last year to boost housing production begins to take effect. Almost every jurisdiction in eastern Massachusetts, from the New Hampshire border to Worcester to the Cape Cod Canal, will have to do its part zoning for 344,000 new units of as-of-right multifamily housing—or lose access to some state grant programs. That means allowing apartments in many tony subdivisions currently reserved for single-family homes.

For perspective, all of Massachusetts currently builds just 15,000 new units a year—a huge drop-off from the 20th century and one reason that the Boston area has some of the highest rents and home prices in the country. “Massachusetts is the first state to actually get a policy like this,” said Jessie Grogan at the Cambridge-based Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “Are the incentives strong enough? Probably not. But it will have some impact, and more than the other housing tools we’ve tried.”

In some ways, Massachusetts is thriving. Employment is high; incomes are among the highest in the nation. In spite of that, the population declined between 2020 and 2021—a trend that reflects the state’s crushing housing shortage. As in California and Oregon, policymakers in Massachusetts have realized that splintered metropolitan governments are structurally incapable of effectively addressing the issue. Few towns want to change, and nobody wants to go first.

So far, West Coast states have had more success breaking down apartment bans than East Coast peers like Maryland and Connecticut. But the East is catching up. Pro-housing reforms suddenly seem viable in Albany. Some are modeled after Massachusetts, where unlike most Republicans Gov. Charlie Baker has not let contempt for the poor outweigh pro-growth instinct.

Baker thinks the Bay State’s crimped housing production is at the root of its affordability crisis. “It’s an equity problem, it’s an economic development problem, it’s a community development problem,” he told reporters last spring. “It makes huge differences with respect to where people can actually afford to live here in the commonwealth, whether or not they can stay, and where they make decisions about where to start a family.” Liberal housing experts agree, and add that it’s an environmental problem: Building restrictions in central areas force families to relocate into car-dependent sprawl.


Baker’s 2021 economic development bill included zoning and permitting reform. But the biggest gambit was the multifamily housing mandate for the Boston suburbs. As Michael Kennealy, Massachusetts’ secretary of housing and economic development, said in a webinar this month: “Our housing strategy could be simply summarized as more types of housing everywhere.”

The mandate applies to places served by or adjacent to stations of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the state agency that operates the buses and trains that fan out of Boston. The so-called MBTA communities include fishing towns, postindustrial cities, and rural outposts. But the highest burden falls on Boston’s bedroom suburbs, such as Quincy and Newton, whose excellent transit infrastructure is compromised by complicated and exclusionary zoning rules.

Take Newton, where the median home sells for $1.4 million. It’s a large suburb of 88,000 souls 7 miles from Boston Common. It has 10 stations of light rail and commuter rail.* But the residential density around those stops, according to the Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s Transit-Oriented Development Explorer, never exceeds five units an acre. The median across all MBTA stations is 6.2 homes per acre; the state now requires MBTA communities include at least one district with 15 homes per acre. (That corresponds to a relatively dense but recognizably suburban fabric, such as town houses or duplexes around shared yards.)

Under compliance with the new law, Newton would realistically need more than one district, since the state is requiring it create by-right zoning capacity for 8,330 apartments. How much by-right multifamily zoning exists in Newton today? None.


At a zoning meeting in Newton last week, city councilors sounded alternately excited and defiant about loosening up land use regulations. The deep-blue suburb briefly flirted with ending single-family zoning after the racial justice protests of 2020, before retreating in panic during municipal elections last year. Newton has permitted a handful of apartment projects in recent years, but all have gone through lengthy review with the City Council. One 800-unit development, Northland, took three years, hundreds of meetings, and an 18-month public hearing process to be approved. Councilors secured additional units of affordable housing—but also shrank the project by almost 50 percent.

That type of back-and-forth negotiation, beloved by city councils the world over, is what Massachusetts is trying to avoid by making zoning “as of right”—no horse-trading and no unforeseen delays. “It’s a huge problem in metro Boston,” said Grogan. “Local communities have evolved to require a special permitting process, which allows a lot of flexibility to get concessions and amenities. On the other hand, it makes development a lot more expensive and less predictable because you never know what you’ll be asked to do going into the process.”

Tim Reardon, of Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council, noted that even straightforward zoning can be burdensome. The Boston suburb of Essex, for example, requires a four-bedroom apartment include six parking spots! “As a developer told us in a forum last week,” he said, “there’s also a concern that as-of-right zoning could have so many restrictions that it ends up being infeasible.” Even well-meaning rules, such as affordability requirements or environmental standards, can put a chokehold on new supply.

More worrisome, perhaps, is the possibility that suburbs can fulfill the mandate by redrawing zoning maps to include existing apartment buildings constructed during a more freewheeling era. According to the planning council, this double-counting could reduce the law’s impact by 75,000 units, nearly 25 percent of the total, especially in places that are already relatively dense and well served by transit—such as the college towns of Cambridge and Somerville. Perversely, this means that those places could sneak through allowing little new housing—while some faraway small towns zone for rapid growth.

Finally, there’s the concern that prosperous suburbs will simply not follow the law—a possibility that a couple of Newton councilors suggested might be easier than abandoning their right to shape future projects. “It remains uncertain what the courts will do if they don’t comply,” said Clark Ziegler of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, which is working with jurisdictions on adapting to the new rules. “It is a mandate. It’s not an opt-in.” But if penalties don’t go beyond loss of grants, the mandate may not legalize apartments in very many suburbs. That, in turn, would funnel pent-up demand into those jurisdictions that do permit new apartments, increasing the burden of compliance. (This is one reason the state wants all these suburbs to upzone at once.)

Still, said Ziegler, whose organization has been angling for a multifamily mandate for a decade, it’s a good start. “You have to take the long view here. It will take a while to play out, and that’s appropriate. Some communities are poised. Some are going to have to go kicking and screaming.”

[Jinggangshan]

Another week came and went...you any closer to actually mandating masks nationwide yet? 3 weeks ago some dude in here told me there are states that ban masks in schools, have the responsible people been committed to insane asylums yet?

[The Jamesian Republic]

Another week came and went...you any closer to actually mandating masks nationwide yet? 3 weeks ago some dude in here told me there are states that ban masks in schools, have the responsible people been committed to insane asylums yet?

No, and they never will be.

[Untecna]

House select committee obtains Jan. 6th records after Supreme Court ruling

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Archives and Records Administration has provided a House committee with more than 700 pages of presidential documents after the Supreme Court rejected a bid by former President Donald Trump to block the release.

The House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection received the documents Thursday evening, according to a person familiar with the handover who requested anonymity to discuss it. The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the archives could turn over the documents, which include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes dealing with Jan. 6 from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Trump’s lawyers had hoped to prolong the court fight and keep the documents on hold.

The documents, which the panel first requested in August, will add to the tens of thousands the committee has already gathered as it investigates the attack by a violent mob of Trump’s supporters and what the former president and his aides were doing while it unfolded. The panel has done around 350 interviews and plans a series of hearings and reports this year as it seeks to compile the most comprehensive accounting yet of the insurrection.

[Jinggangshan]

Another week came and went...you any closer to actually mandating masks nationwide yet? 3 weeks ago some dude in here told me there are states that ban masks in schools, have the responsible people been committed to insane asylums yet?

No, and they never will be.

Then your country is truly lost.

[Vassenor]

House select committee obtains Jan. 6th records after Supreme Court ruling

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Archives and Records Administration has provided a House committee with more than 700 pages of presidential documents after the Supreme Court rejected a bid by former President Donald Trump to block the release.

The House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection received the documents Thursday evening, according to a person familiar with the handover who requested anonymity to discuss it. The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the archives could turn over the documents, which include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes dealing with Jan. 6 from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Trump’s lawyers had hoped to prolong the court fight and keep the documents on hold.

The documents, which the panel first requested in August, will add to the tens of thousands the committee has already gathered as it investigates the attack by a violent mob of Trump’s supporters and what the former president and his aides were doing while it unfolded. The panel has done around 350 interviews and plans a series of hearings and reports this year as it seeks to compile the most comprehensive accounting yet of the insurrection.

LET’S GOOO

[The Jamesian Republic]

No, and they never will be.

Then your country is truly lost.

Because things like this don’t ever happen in Europe, right?

[Untecna]

Another piece of news on BBB: Democrats will block BBB without tax break

Jan 21 (Reuters) - Several U.S. House members from President Joe Biden's Democratic Party are threatening to block a renewed push for his Build Back Better spending bill if it does not include the expansion of a federal deduction for taxes paid to states and local entities.

Expanding the deduction, known as SALT for State and Local Taxes, has been a demand of lawmakers in higher-tax states such as California, New Jersey and New York, especially in suburbs where Democrats seek to retain control in Nov. 8 elections.

"We support the president’s agenda, and if there are any efforts that include a change in the tax code, then a SALT fix must be part of it. No SALT, no deal," members Tom Suozzi of New York and Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer, both of New Jersey, said in a joint statement late on Thursday.

The SALT deduction, part of the U.S. income tax code from its inception more than a century ago, was restricted to $10,000 in a 2017 Republican tax law.

The cap disproportionately affects homeowners in higher home-value states that lean toward the Democratic Party, like New Jersey, where the average homeowner pays roughly $9,000 in local property taxes.

Asked about the House lawmakers' demand, a Biden White House official said: "We are in touch with a wide range of lawmakers regarding the president’s economic growth plan for the middle class, and weighed in about SALT late last year, but we won’t negotiate in public."

The "SALT caucus" has more than 30 members in the House of Representatives who want to expand the deduction, including some Republicans, congressional aides say.

Their demand adds to the challenges the White House faces as it tries to salvage some of Biden's $1.7 trillion spending package and push it through with slim congressional majorities.

As the White House tries to downsize that bill, it may need to jettison hundreds of billions of dollars in social programs, but preserve SALT, a tax deduction that some in the party call a giveaway to the rich.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can only afford three defections because Democrats narrowly control a majority in the 435-member House.

The House passed a version of Biden’s social-spending bill that increased the cap to $80,000, despite objections from some progressives that it largely benefits higher-income households. The bill died in the 100-member Senate for lack of majority Democratic support.