USCE Summer 2022: You can't change the crisis settings.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Summer 2022: You can't change the crisis settings.

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idiotsavant: Jun 4, 2000

Kalli posted:

One I remember: https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/san-francisco-patient-dumping-incident-costs-nevada-400000/406955/

Yep, that's the one

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:02

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# ? May 26, 2024 03:48

Delthalaz: Mar 5, 2003; Slippery Tilde

Kalit posted:

What about leftists who are also a liberal that have allied with a fascist?

I�m going to assume an evaluation of this complexity involves a pivot table

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:07

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

I wonder what the deal is with NYC. Nobody seems to have a 100% conclusive answer, but despite unemployment being at near historical lows and the labor force participation rate at near record highs, NYC is the only metro area in the entire country to not fully recover the jobs lost during the pandemic.

There are still roughly 162,000 fewer jobs in NYC than there were pre-pandemic, despite literally every other metro area in the country having a record new level of open jobs.

Combined with falling tax receipts from the persistent unemployment, lower tourism, a potential requirement to add funding to pensions to meet minimum required payouts, and reduced fares from public transportation the unique situation has made NYC the only major metro area in the country to still be worse off economically than it was pre-pandemic.

The city's budget is projected to fall $10 billion short. That $10 billion shortfall is even after all agencies (including the NYPD that is usually exempt from these requirements) cut their budget by 3% and then another 4.75% next year.

NYC is unable to raise any taxes, except property taxes, on their own without approval from the state legislature. They don't want to massively raise property taxes, so they are still unsure of what to do to cover the shortfall and if the sticky unemployment and lower tax revenue will still be a factor next year.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1571891913543876618

quote:

New York City Faces Potential Fiscal Crisis as $10 Billion Deficit Looms

A persistent pandemic-driven downturn has caused revenue from business and personal-income taxes to fall in New York City, while tourism and job losses have yet to recover.

New York City, battered by economic headwinds and mired in a stubborn pandemic-driven downturn afflicting employment, tourism and tax revenue, is teetering on the brink of a severe budget crisis.

For the first time in six years, city officials expect that business tax revenue will decline. Personal income and related tax revenue is expected to fall by 7.7 percent, the largest drop in a dozen years.

And Wall Street�s struggles may require the city to fork over billions of dollars to its workers� pension funds, to meet its obligation to provide guaranteed minimum returns.

The city�s commercial office market is on the precipice of a potential work-from-home abyss. The transit system�s financial situation is so grim that the state comptroller has warned that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority may seek more financial support from the city. And while the nation has regained the jobs it lost during the pandemic, New York City is still 162,000 jobs short, with the situation especially dire for Black New Yorkers, whose unemployment rate of more than 10 percent remains nearly three times the national average.

Mayor Eric Adams entered office in January as the nation�s largest city faced one of its most challenging periods. The coronavirus pandemic caused tourism and some tax revenues to plunge, while violent crime and unemployment rose.

But thanks to an extraordinary flood of federal aid, fiscal disaster was kept at bay, enabling the city to pass a record-breaking $101 billion budget in June.

That fiscal buoyancy may soon give way.

Last week, the Adams administration directed city agencies to cut their city-funded expenses by 3 percent this year, and 4.75 percent the next. Even the Police Department, which is sometimes exempt from across-the-board belt-tightening, must cut its budget.

The mayor sounded the need for fiscal conservatism in the face of a new class-size mandate from Albany that he says will cost at least $500 million a year; impending contract negotiations with the city�s 300,000 workers; a growing population of asylum seekers stretching the city�s shelter resources; and the potential pension shortfall.

Overall, the city�s revenue stream is projected to fall this year and next � the first two-year decline in audited state comptroller records, which date back to 1980. The state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, recently said the city faced a potential budget gap in 2026 of nearly $10 billion.

�Since I took office in January, we have made public safety and fiscal discipline hallmarks of our administration,� Mr. Adams said in a statement. �We currently face new costs that will increase the city�s obligations by billions of dollars, including growing pension contributions, expiring labor contracts and rising health care expenses. In response, we are asking every city agency to tighten its belt without laying off a single employee or reducing services.�

James Parrott, the director of economic and fiscal policy at the New School�s Center for New York City Affairs, said it seemed like the mayor was using the economic downturn �to propose a really conservative budgeting approach at this point, to dampen the expectations that many of the parties out there have for what to expect from the city budget for the next year or two.�

New Yorkers have already felt the impact of diminished city services. The city is building fewer units of affordable housing than in years past, emergency response times are up and serious injuries resulting from jail violence have increased.

Should the city be forced to cut billions of dollars in spending, it could lead to fewer garbage pickups, fewer protected bike lanes and even fewer police officers on the streets at a time when fears of rising crime are prevalent.

The city has suffered far worse economic environments, most notably in 1975, when it recovered from the brink of bankruptcy after the state stripped the city of its fiduciary control and transferred it to newly created oversight boards.

City leaders did find ways to cut multibillion-dollar deficits after the post-Sept. 11 economic nosedive � in part by raising property taxes � and the Great Recession, which ended in 2009. A spokesman for the mayor did not respond directly when asked if Mr. Adams would consider raising property taxes, the only tax the city can raise on its own without state legislative approval.

The cuts are slated to go into effect in November, though the City Council can object.

Arrayed before the mayor is a cast of increasingly hostile counterparties who look askance at austerity and question the timing of his cost-cutting effort. They include labor leaders eager to settle new, more generous contracts, and a City Council that is aggressively reconsidering its earlier approval of recent cuts to the city�s education budget, and whose support for the mayor�s November budget cuts is far from assured.

However, Andrew Rein, president of the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, said the mayor�s budget cuts are an important first step.

�Even without a recession, the mayor is facing a really tough fiscal challenge. The recession will make it much, much, much more,� Mr. Rein said.

Budget experts anticipate city agencies will grapple with some of these cost-cutting demands by eliminating unfilled job openings. Many of those jobs are open because droves of people have been leaving city government, and the city has struggled to replace them. Some of those experts argue that to demand cuts while expecting agencies to avoid service reductions is unrealistic, particularly since some programs, like the expansion of prekindergarten for 3-year-olds, are dependent on federal aid that is drying up.

Four agency leaders said this cost-cutting effort would mean eliminating jobs that need to be filled and would further exacerbate the city�s staffing problems and service delivery issues.

�It does affect service delivery in the city, certainly,� Mr. Parrott said. �It will affect the morale of city workers.�

By many accounts, morale and service delivery are already suffering.

As of this summer, the city government�s overall job vacancy rate was 7.9 percent � roughly five times higher than in recent years, according to the most recent data from the Citizens Budget Commission. Nearly 25 percent of jobs at the Buildings Department remain empty. The Parks Department has had trouble hiring entry-level staff, information technology workers and lifeguards.

A recent survey by the Managerial Employees Association found that more than 70 percent of members who responded said they had taken on more work thanks to colleagues leaving their agencies.

Opposition to the mayor�s cuts is growing.

Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the Council, recently described the administration�s decision to freeze hiring as part of its cost-cutting efforts as �counterproductive.�

Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, agreed, and on Friday sent a letter to the budget director warning that �imposing a hiring freeze at this time could put at risk critical programs that New Yorkers rely on.�

When Mr. Adams, a former police officer, was running for election last year, he won support from several of the city�s most influential labor unions, which represent many Black and Latino New Yorkers. Mr. Adams is expected to seek their support again in his re-election campaign, for which he is already raising money.

While union leaders could theoretically hold off on contract negotiations until the economy improves and the city is in a better position to award raises, union members may be too restive to wait.

In an email to members on Tuesday, Michael Mulgrew, head of the United Federation of Teachers, indicated as much.

�We plan to move as aggressively as possible to reach a deal given how inflation has raised the cost of living over the past year,� he said.

Henry Garrido, executive director of the city�s largest municipal union, District Council 37, has adopted a similar stance.

�We ask the mayor to stop making the mistakes of the past by cutting vital services, and urge him to come to the table to negotiate in good faith,� he said in a statement issued last week.

Mr. Garrido said in an interview that the union�s top priorities would include higher wages and a policy that would allow employees to work from home where appropriate.

�We�re having a serious issue with recruitment and retention,� Mr. Garrido said. �We have a lot of competing organizations that are trying to recruit and retain our members, particularly in health care and information technology.�

At the moment there is only enough money set aside for 1.25 percent raises, a number that even the mayor acknowledges will not suffice.

�We�re clear, that this is a beginning not an ending,� Mr. Adams said earlier this month at a state Financial Control Board meeting. �However, while we are committed to paying fair wages, we will not make deals that the city cannot afford.�

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:09

evilweasel: Aug 24, 2002

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

I wonder what the deal is with NYC. Nobody seems to have a 100% conclusive answer, but despite unemployment being at near historical lows and the labor force participation rate at near record highs, NYC is the only metro area in the entire country to not fully recover the jobs lost during the pandemic.

There are still roughly 162,000 fewer jobs in NYC than there were pre-pandemic, despite literally every other metro area in the country having a record new level of open jobs.

NYC has a huge office downtown with a ton of commercial businesses that rely on in-office workers. Those have been in trouble. It does the pizza store a block from my office building no good that I still have a job, if I am doing it from home instead of my office. It does the suit stores no good that I could have survived the past two and a half years without a single pair of dress pants. So much of Manhattan is geared to supporting in-office working that cannot support working from home, so the jobs maintained by the pandemic by going remote (and the sort of white-collar manhattan office jobs transitioned well to remote) don't save those ancillary jobs - and the higher levels of work-from-home may be permanent.

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:15

fart_man_69: May 18, 2009

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Nah capitalism is a state that is passed through on the way to socialism. before the Russian revolution there was a great deal of back and forth about can we have the revolution or not because we are still in feudalism here. After the revolution they had to do the NEP to bring in markets before they could collectivise and nationalize. In China you have similar thoughts with the Dengists, where they actively developed capitalism in China as a necessary precondition to developing socialism from it by nationalizing the firms capitalists were given the freedom to grow.

Like this is an idea even back in Marx�s and Engel�s writings.

Well sure, all of that is true. But how does it relate to my original point, which concerned the nature of fascism as a development of capitalism? Like, the NEP or other such plans weren't intended to introduce fascism. The pathway goes capitalism -> fascism or socialism. Fascism is not the inevitable result of capitalist accumulation in all circumstances, even if that is the process through which fascism is eventually realized.

And sorry for off-topic, the last fascism thread in D&D was interesting but short-lived.

fart_man_69 fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Sep 19, 2022

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:19

idiotsavant: Jun 4, 2000

I wonder if the shift to WFH isn't disproportionally hitting NYC, given how many people commute in from adjacent states, even, and given just how much extra local economic activity a full office building generates.

edit: exactly as ew said.

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:19

CellBlock: Oct 6, 2005; It just don't stop.

idiotsavant posted:

I wonder if the shift to WFH isn't disproportionally hitting NYC, given how many people commute in from adjacent states, even, and given just how much extra local economic activity a full office building generates.

edit: exactly as ew said.

And to add, how much money is/was spent specifically on the commuting - gas, tolls, transit fares... a big segment of local cash flow just up and stopped.

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:23

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

evilweasel posted:

NYC has a huge office downtown with a ton of commercial businesses that rely on in-office workers. Those have been in trouble. It does the pizza store a block from my office building no good that I still have a job, if I am doing it from home instead of my office. It does the suit stores no good that I could have survived the past two and a half years without a single pair of dress pants. So much of Manhattan is geared to supporting in-office working that cannot support working from home, so the jobs maintained by the pandemic by going remote (and the sort of white-collar manhattan office jobs transitioned well to remote) don't save those ancillary jobs - and the higher levels of work-from-home may be permanent.

That is definitely one of the major contributors, but downtown NYC is structured similarly to other downtown business sectors in different major metro areas. NYC doesn't even have one of the highest remote worker percentages of a major city either. Yet, every other major metro area seemed to have not only avoided this situation, but come out better than they were pre-pandemic.

NYC is a huge outlier and just looking at the topline numbers (which are not always a good way to get the full story, but still) it shouldn't be THIS much of an outlier in terms of mass unemployment. NYC has nearly double the unemployment rate of the national average and the city has historically had lower than average unemployment.

idiotsavant posted:

I wonder if the shift to WFH isn't disproportionally hitting NYC, given how many people commute in from adjacent states, even, and given just how much extra local economic activity a full office building generates.

This is also something to consider. I don't know if the WFH % calculation for NYC is based strictly on where the company is located or what state the employee is in. There are a lot of NJ and CT commuters that may not be "WFH in NYC" who nonetheless aren't putting money in there.

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:23

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

I'm sure the ongoing in-store retailpocalypse isn't helping either. A lot of small NYC storefronts were barely getting by before the pandemic and with more families having switched to delivery services and Amazon, big stretches of Manhattan retail space are now vacant and I honestly don't see who comes in to fill them up.

I've been wondering if the Broadway theatre world is still in a pit too...

EDIT: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/arts/performing-arts-pandemic-attendance.html

Looks like the performing arts and movie theatres are still struggling to recover too.

Eric Cantonese fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Sep 19, 2022

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:35

Mendrian: Jan 6, 2013

Lol, "Everybody's employed and involved but nobody's buying anything!" yes what a mystery, it's almost like sucking out all of my income directly into the rent makes me a little anxious about buying a new couch.

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:40

A big flaming stink: Apr 26, 2010

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Please don't get into a multi-page derail about how different dictionaries define a word.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Sep 19, 2022 20:41

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Mendrian posted:

Lol, "Everybody's employed and involved but nobody's buying anything!" yes what a mystery, it's almost like sucking out all of my income directly into the rent makes me a little anxious about buying a new couch.

Not every body is employed is NYC (relative to the rest of the country), though.

That is the specific issue/question at hand. Every other metro area has more jobs and more people working for higher incomes than pre-pandemic - except for NYC. They are way out of sync with literally every other area of the country. They also shouldn't be having this much of a problem with unemployment based on the overall numbers.

# ? Sep 19, 2022 21:12

VikingofRock: Aug 24, 2008

It always feels very strange to me that we largely leave it up to individual cities to fund themselves — it just sets up situations like this, where changing work trends can destroy the finances of the largest city in the country. Do other countries largely leave city financing up to the cities themselves?

# ? Sep 19, 2022 22:09

Charliegrs: Aug 10, 2009

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

I wonder what the deal is with NYC. Nobody seems to have a 100% conclusive answer, but despite unemployment being at near historical lows and the labor force participation rate at near record highs, NYC is the only metro area in the entire country to not fully recover the jobs lost during the pandemic.

There are still roughly 162,000 fewer jobs in NYC than there were pre-pandemic, despite literally every other metro area in the country having a record new level of open jobs.

Combined with falling tax receipts from the persistent unemployment, lower tourism, a potential requirement to add funding to pensions to meet minimum required payouts, and reduced fares from public transportation the unique situation has made NYC the only major metro area in the country to still be worse off economically than it was pre-pandemic.

The city's budget is projected to fall $10 billion short. That $10 billion shortfall is even after all agencies (including the NYPD that is usually exempt from these requirements) cut their budget by 3% and then another 4.75% next year.

NYC is unable to raise any taxes, except property taxes, on their own without approval from the state legislature. They don't want to massively raise property taxes, so they are still unsure of what to do to cover the shortfall and if the sticky unemployment and lower tax revenue will still be a factor next year.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1571891913543876618

Maybe "real New York" will make a comeback. Times square will once again be wall to wall porn stores, the amount of piss on the streets will return to 1970s levels, and CBGBs will reopen.

# ? Sep 19, 2022 22:38

Leon Sumbitches: Mar 27, 2010; Dr. Leon Adoso Sumbitches (prounounced soom-'beh-cheh) (born January 21, 1935) is heir to the legendary Adoso family oil fortune.

Charliegrs posted:

Maybe "real New York" will make a comeback. Times square will once again be wall to wall porn stores, the amount of piss on the streets will return to 1970s levels, and CBGBs will reopen.

They got a CBGBs at the airport

# ? Sep 19, 2022 23:28

Archonex: May 2, 2012; MY OPINION IS SEERS OF THE THRONE PROPAGANDA IGNORE MY GNOSIS-IMPAIRED RAMBLINGS

Charliegrs posted:

Maybe "real New York" will make a comeback. Times square will once again be wall to wall porn stores, the amount of piss on the streets will return to 1970s levels, and CBGBs will reopen.

Jokes aside, could the lack of jobs be the result of of corporate "downsizing" (read: Firing employees to keep exec bonuses high and the like during the economic downturn of COVID.) and then never restoring the lost jobs?

Or just less people being willing to work multiple jobs to make basic ends meet, thereby also leading to a downsize in junk jobs over time as employers give up trying to con employees into bad jobs that lead to bad life situations?

Like, you joke about wall to wall porn stores, but basic service work like manning a register is poo poo that just does not pay well enough for the costs of life anymore. Especially in areas like New York City where cost of living is loving absurd unless you're in some special area that hasn't ramped costs up. If jobs are MIA then despite initial appearances it could also necessarily be a good thing for labor (though not to a livable standard given other factors :shrug:

) overall when coupled with the realization that unemployment being down.

Alternatively, if less tax receipts are coming in despite unemployment being low then that has some alarming possibilities. One of which being there could be a serious issue with too many folks living below the poverty line due to lovely pay that keeps them in indentured servitude (workitude?) tier poverty. Not even sure how you get there given how wildly inadequate pay would have to be compared to the cost of living in or in traveling distance to NYC but holy poo poo if so. :stare:

That's alarming if so, since that's the sort of situation that leads to Detroit or Chicago exurb tier urban decay if it keeps up for too long, only on the scale of a major city.

Edit: The city not having enough money due to taxes not compensating could (Aside from the difficulty in raising taxes. Also loving lol at doing that in NYC of all places.) also be the result of the sort of bloat that comes with people in charge not realizing that people aren't going to take such a lovely living and working situations forever and not accommodating the long term budget of agencies within it appropriately. Couple this with tourism crashing due to COVID and you have a recipe for disaster.

Meaning when a crash comes things get hosed on the budgetary end of things and this subsequently leads to people/right wing and corporatist leaning rags to gaslight about how they just can't understand how all this revenue disappeared. Since to admit that working in that particular part of the country in this day and age simply does not pay enough to justify costs of living and associated expenses would mean admitting that labor is treated like poo poo in favor of financial* and executive needs that are despoiling the region and it's long term viability.

*NYC is, last I checked, a hub of finance too. This includes all sorts of shady banks. So yeah, not like the mayor is going to come out and say that living in NYC is a raw deal if you aren't a multi millionaire if that's what the problem is. Which is something that's been covered many times in past years. It'd be political suicide.

Looking at the comments to the tweet isn't going to help in examining the issue, since it's the NYT posting the tweet leading to an article. So obviously a lot of the comments are obviously dipshit Republicans being racists or just other Republican dumbasses essentially going "lol gotta trip over my own balls in my haste to desperately try to find a way to own the libs" due to them targeting major articles via bots or just unpleasant human beings to push their lovely views. So I figured i'd post this here since I haven't seen any real examination of it yet.

Archonex fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Sep 20, 2022

# ? Sep 19, 2022 23:35

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Charliegrs posted:

Maybe "real New York" will make a comeback. Times square will once again be wall to wall porn stores, the amount of piss on the streets will return to 1970s levels, and CBGBs will reopen.

I never got to the CBGBs, but when I was visiting NY a handful of years ago, I stumbled into the building it used to be in. I realized I was in it when I went to the bathroom in the clothing store that now occupies it.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 00:01

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

Kalit posted:

I never got to the CBGBs, but when I was visiting NY a handful of years ago, I stumbled into the building it used to be in. I realized I was in it when I went to the bathroom in the clothing store that now occupies it.

There are some stains can never be erased.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 00:30

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Not every body is employed is NYC (relative to the rest of the country), though.

That is the specific issue/question at hand. Every other metro area has more jobs and more people working for higher incomes than pre-pandemic - except for NYC. They are way out of sync with literally every other area of the country. They also shouldn't be having this much of a problem with unemployment based on the overall numbers.

NYC might be particularly impacted. I think its mix of local industries is a bit more vulnerable than your average metro area. Even by "major US urban area" standards, NYC is especially skewed toward stuff like finance, real estate, and tourism.

And that employment disruption combined with the particularly brutal rents there appear to have driven a level of flight. A lot of major urban areas lost population during the pandemic, but New York had by far the largest drop in nominal terms: between mid-2020 and mid-2021, NYC lost more than 300k people, despite births outpacing deaths there. Manhattan lost nearly 7% of its population. Some of them are heading upstate, but enough left for Texas and California for the state of NY to see a record population decrease.

On top of that, NYC isn't really attracting tourism like it used to anymore, and that's especially the case for international travelers. The amount of tourist money spent in NYC in 2021 was around half of the amount spent in 2019.

Certainly, other metro areas have had similar problems. But NYC may have been disproportionately vulnerable to these problems, and thus taken a much heavier hit.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 00:56

Moktaro: Aug 3, 2007; I value call my nuts.

I guess this is what happens when you *don't* get high on your own supply! https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1571993612392579082

# ? Sep 20, 2022 01:59

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Bit on the nose, don't you think?

# ? Sep 20, 2022 02:12

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

I guess what�s beyond meat is cartilage

# ? Sep 20, 2022 02:17

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Both the victim and the attacker are on record saying they can't taste the difference.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 03:01

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Criminal investigation into the migrant situation is officially open. The San Antonio police believe that the migrants may have been lied to in order to convince them to leave the shelter in San Antonio so that DeSantis and Abbott could get custody of a group to send to Massachusetts.

Eric Adams also said that New York City is looking into its legal options against Texas for the other buses of migrants who have been dropped off in NYC with no plans for a place to stay or notice to NYC.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1572035349425127426

quote:

Criminal Investigation Is Opened After Migrant Flights to Martha�s Vineyard

SAN ANTONIO � A county sheriff in Texas announced on Monday that he had opened a criminal investigation into flights that took 48 migrants from a shelter in San Antonio to the island resort of Martha�s Vineyard last week.

Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, said that he had enlisted agents from his office�s organized crime task force and that it was too early to determine which laws might have been broken. But he said it was clear that many of the migrants had been misled and lured away from Texas to score political points.

The migrants, caught in a mounting political fight between Republican governors of border states and Democratic officials, were flown to Massachusetts by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida last week. A day later, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas sent two busloads of migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris�s residence in Washington.

A migrant appears to have been paid to recruit other Venezuelan migrants, who have been crossing the southwest border in greater numbers, from the area around a migrant resource center in San Antonio, Sheriff Salazar said. The migrants were �lured under false pretenses� with promises of work and a better life, he added.

�They had a right to walk around the streets just like you and me, and they had a right not to be preyed on and played for a fool and transported halfway across the country, just for the sake of a media event or a video opportunity,� Sheriff Salazar, a Democrat, said. �That�s a tragedy.�

Many of the migrants who have sought asylum and work in the United States in recent months are fleeing Venezuela, which is in political and economic turmoil. More than two million undocumented immigrants, a record, have been arrested along the southern border this fiscal year, according to Customs and Border Protection data released on Monday.

The Venezuelan migrants who were taken to Martha�s Vineyard said they had traveled for more than two months, crossing the perilous Dari�n Gap before continuing through Central America and Mexico.

In interviews with reporters, they described being approached in San Antonio by a well-dressed woman who introduced herself as Perla; she handed out gift cards for fast-food restaurants and offered to take them to �sanctuary� in Massachusetts.

After the migrants unexpectedly arrived on Martha�s Vineyard, volunteers and officials welcomed them with food and clothing and gave them shelter at a local church. A few days later, the migrants boarded buses for a temporary shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod.

Taryn Fenske, the communications director for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement that the migrants had been more than willing to leave Bexar County after being abandoned there. �Florida gave them an opportunity to seek greener pastures in a sanctuary jurisdiction that offered greater resources for them,� she said.

In Massachusetts, she added, the migrants were �provided accommodations, sustenance, clothing and more options to succeed following their unfair enticement into the United States, unlike the 53 immigrants who died in a truck found abandoned in Bexar County this June.�

Sheriff Salazar said he had not ruled out the possibility of working with state and federal officials on the criminal case. His office has yet to interview the migrants, who are now on the East Coast, and has communicated mainly with one of the lawyers representing them, he added.

The sheriff, who has been a constant critic of the Republican response to illegal immigration, stressed that his decision to open the investigation was not politically motivated.

�It�s doing the right thing,� he said.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 03:25

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

https://twitter.com/JZBleiberg/status/1572043512983748609

quote:

PECOS, Texas (AP) � A U.S. law banning those under felony indictments from buying guns is unconstitutional, a federal judge in West Texas ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge David Counts, whom then-President Donald Trump appointed to the federal bench, dismissed a federal indictment against Jose Gomez Quiroz that had charged him under the federal ban.

According to Counts� ruling, Quiroz was under a state burglary indictment when he tried to buy a .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun and challenged the ensuing federal charge.

In a 25-page opinion filed in Pecos, Texas, Counts acknowledged �this case�s real-world consequences � certainly valid public policy and safety concerns exist.� However, he said a Supreme Court ruling this summer in a challenge brought by the New York Rifle & Pistol Association �framed those concerns solely as a historical analysis.�

�Although not exhaustive, the Court�s historical survey finds little evidence that ... (the federal ban) � which prohibits those under felony indictment from obtaining a firearm � aligns with this Nation�s historical tradition.�

Hence, he ruled the ban unconstitutional as the �Second Amendment is not a �second class right,� as noted in a 2008 Supreme Court ruling. �No longer can courts balance away a constitutional right,� Counts wrote. After the New York case, �the Government must prove that laws regulating conduct covered by the Second Amendment�s plain text align with this Nation�s historical tradition. The Government does not meet that burden.�

In the New York case, the high court held by a 6-3 vote, with conservative justices forming the majority, that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. The June 23 ruling, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, was seen then as likely to lead to more people being legally armed.

A message to the U.S. Attorney�s Office for the Western District of Texas did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Well, that's not good. I can't say I'm surprised this ended up getting challenged/ruled in favor of being unconstitutional. If this ruling doesn't get overturned, our country is going to see an even greater increase in gun deaths than we're already seeing. Especially when it comes to domestic violence. :sigh:

# ? Sep 20, 2022 04:59

OAquinas: Jan 27, 2008; Biden has sat immobile on the Iron Throne of America. He is the Master of Malarkey by the will of the gods, and master of a million votes by the might of his inexhaustible calamari.

https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1572051613212098562

Looks like Desantis is a man of his word.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 06:25

Staluigi: Jun 22, 2021

Still just gonna marvel at these guys doubling down into cartoonish villainy portrayals of conservatives with "human trafficking refugees to own the libs"

# ? Sep 20, 2022 06:53

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

Staluigi posted:

Still just gonna marvel at these guys doubling down into cartoonish villainy portrayals of conservatives with "human trafficking refugees to own the libs"

They genuinely do not and never will care. Even on the chance some of them actually get thrown in jail, they will consider it nothing but a grave injustice and proof of their enemies' evil.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 07:16

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Staluigi posted:

Still just gonna marvel at these guys doubling down into cartoonish villainy portrayals of conservatives with "human trafficking refugees to own the libs"

Lets hope some fence sitters are convinced by it.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 07:32

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Kalit posted:

https://twitter.com/JZBleiberg/status/1572043512983748609

Well, that's not good. I can't say I'm surprised this ended up getting challenged/ruled in favor of being unconstitutional. If this ruling doesn't get overturned, our country is going to see an even greater increase in gun deaths than we're already seeing. Especially when it comes to domestic violence.

This was exactly what I was afraid of when they ruled in that case earlier this year.

Per this quote-

quote:

Hence, he ruled the ban unconstitutional as the �Second Amendment is not a �second class right,� as noted in a 2008 Supreme Court ruling. �No longer can courts balance away a constitutional right,� Counts wrote. After the New York case, �the Government must prove that laws regulating conduct covered by the Second Amendment�s plain text align with this Nation�s historical tradition. The Government does not meet that burden.�

I remember discussion at the time that the text of that ruling, where they raised the standard for gun regulation to have to meet the 'historical tradition' standard, which is a ludicrous standard to begin with, was going to make it almost impossible for a lot of federal gun regulations to stand. Now here we are.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 11:38

Mooseontheloose: May 13, 2003

Staluigi posted:

Still just gonna marvel at these guys doubling down into cartoonish villainy portrayals of conservatives with "human trafficking refugees to own the libs"

It boggles the mind that people vote for this poo poo and eat it up. Sure your state is 50th in education but he's owning the libs using our money so its ok.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 12:35

BonoMan: Feb 20, 2002; Jade Ear Joe

Kalit posted:

https://twitter.com/JZBleiberg/status/1572043512983748609

Well, that's not good. I can't say I'm surprised this ended up getting challenged/ruled in favor of being unconstitutional. If this ruling doesn't get overturned, our country is going to see an even greater increase in gun deaths than we're already seeing. Especially when it comes to domestic violence.

On the other hand, can we now say that banning the right to vote for felony offenders is also unconstitutional?

# ? Sep 20, 2022 12:39

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

BonoMan posted:

On the other hand, can we now say that banning the right to vote for felony offenders is also unconstitutional?

You�re hilarious

# ? Sep 20, 2022 12:54

tagesschau: Sep 1, 2006; D&D: HASBARA SQUAD
THE SPEECH SUPPRESSOR

Remember: it's "antisemitic" to protest genocide as long as the targets are brown.

BonoMan posted:

On the other hand, can we now say that banning the right to vote for felony offenders is also unconstitutional?

What right to vote?

# ? Sep 20, 2022 13:07

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Mooseontheloose posted:

It boggles the mind that people vote for this poo poo and eat it up. Sure your state is 50th in education but he's owning the libs using our money so its ok.

They believe this poo poo is really what's ruining their states. They're happy to believe that the reason the schools suck is because the libs are forcing them to blow all the education money on subsidizing migrants and woke brainwashing programs instead.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 13:09

Leon Sumbitches: Mar 27, 2010; Dr. Leon Adoso Sumbitches (prounounced soom-'beh-cheh) (born January 21, 1935) is heir to the legendary Adoso family oil fortune.

Main Paineframe posted:

They believe this poo poo is really what's ruining their states. They're happy to believe that the reason the schools suck is because the libs are forcing them to blow all the education money on subsidizing migrants and woke brainwashing programs instead.

I'll not sure they want the schools to be excellent, either. It seems like an uneducated populous has been an unstated goal for decades.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 13:16

Judgy Fucker: Mar 24, 2006

Leon Sumbitches posted:

I'll not sure they want the schools to be excellent, either. It seems like an uneducated populous has been an unstated goal for decades.

I don't disagree, but I think there's a limit to this sentiment. The more you turn the screws on public ed, the harder it's going to be to staff schools--not merely adequately, but at all. Base/primary GOP voters may be giddy at the thought of the destruction of public ed and the coming permanent underclass of serfs to serve them, but I'm not so sure about non-GOP primary voters. In Oklahoma, the Democratic candidate for State Superintendent is leading the Republican candidate--the current Secretary of Education--by just a hair more than the MOE, and the incumbent Republican governor leads his Democratic challenger, the current State Superintendent*, by only one point. The default delta on both races should be close to +20R. And the primary issue for both races (no poo poo on State Super) is education. Ryan Walters and Stitt have made "wokeism" in schools one of, if not the primary plank of their platforms. When a teacher in Norman Public Schools resigned over anti-CRT hysteria and pressure from her district, Ryan Walters publicly called for the revocation of that teacher's teaching license, which led to her receiving enough threats that she had to flee her home and go into hiding. Culture War is gonna culture war, but I think enough "general election" voters for lack of a better term are starting to connect the dots that hey, maybe demonizing teachers to this degree might start to hurt their government-subsidized free daycare.

All that to say, there's gonna start to be pushback over the CRT/woke panic in schools once it starts hurting mommy and daddy's ability to work without childcare. It's already happening in Oklahoma, among the most blood-red states.

*Incumbent State Super Joy Hofmeister, running for governor as a D, was a Republican until about 2 years ago when she switched parties when she decided she wanted to be governor

# ? Sep 20, 2022 13:36

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

Kalit posted:

https://twitter.com/JZBleiberg/status/1572043512983748609

This adds an interesting wrinkle to Trump's plans if he expects an indictment

# ? Sep 20, 2022 13:55

Rigel: Nov 11, 2016

Kalit posted:

https://twitter.com/JZBleiberg/status/1572043512983748609

Well, that's not good. I can't say I'm surprised this ended up getting challenged/ruled in favor of being unconstitutional. If this ruling doesn't get overturned, our country is going to see an even greater increase in gun deaths than we're already seeing. Especially when it comes to domestic violence.

I'm not surprised at all, and this ruling is probably correct, presuming (as this court must) that the second amendment guarantees a personal right to guns.

The key word here is "indictment". It is a bit difficult for me to imagine stripping away a constitutional right based on just an official accusation that has not yet been proven. It is also not going to have a big impact. I'm assuming you must have read it upon first glance as convicted felons. The number of people, who are not convicted felons but who are under a felony indictment that has not yet been fully resolved, is probably very small.

# ? Sep 20, 2022 13:57

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# ? May 26, 2024 03:48

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Rigel posted:

I'm not surprised at all, and this ruling is probably correct, presuming (as this court must) that the second amendment guarantees a personal right to guns.

The key word here is "indictment". It is a bit difficult for me to imagine stripping away a constitutional right based on just an official accusation that has not yet been proven. It is also not going to have a big impact. I'm assuming you must have read it upon first glance as convicted felons. The number of people, who are not convicted felons but who are under a felony indictment that has not yet been fully resolved, is probably very small.

Do you not think this opens the door for convicted felons too? IANAL, but if something is a fundamental right, it sounds like it could be argue that everyone should have it.

Also, I assume this opens the door for those indicted for domestic violence. Which, IMO, is very scary because I would guess there�s a much lower conviction rates for those who are guilty of it�

# ? Sep 20, 2022 14:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Summer 2022: You can't change the crisis settings.

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