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In Minnesota, we have a state Rep (DFL) who's getting pressured from what seems to be everyone to resign. First, a little back story on how this all came up. This saga started off as Representative Thompson said he was racially profiled for a traffic stop when he was pulled over for no front license plate (illegal in MN). Here's a brief summary of a few points: quote:A Minnesota state lawmaker said he was racially profiled during a traffic stop in St. Paul on the Fourth of July that resulted in a ticket for driving with a suspended license. The city’s police chief disputes those claims, calling the encounter “by the books.” quote:St. Paul police said a sergeant stopped Thompson near the intersection of 7th Street East and Wacouta Street on July 4. Thompson identified himself as a state lawmaker and presented a Wisconsin driver’s license, and then the sergeant ticketed Thompson after learning his license was suspended in Minnesota, according to department spokesman Steve Linders. A few days later, the footage for this stop was released. Here, we find out that a little more about confusion about his address and apparently never had a Minnesota license in the first place. In Minnesota, you're required 60 days to obtain a MN driver's license after moving to the state: quote:According to records, Thompson does not hold a Minnesota driver’s license and has never had a driver’s license issued by Minnesota, and he was eventually cited by the officer for driving with a suspended Wisconsin license. WCCO learned his license was revoked on April 21, 2019 for his failure to pay child support in Ramsey County. You can have action taken on your driving record in Minnesota even if you do not hold a valid license. And a license can be suspended because of child support. Thompson’s license was reinstated Wednesday after taking care of the child support issue. quote:That officer was indeed calm and polite throughout the video, but this is just the first of Thompson’s current problems. Another major issue involves his residency. Does he live in the district he represents, as required by state law? Does he even live in the state of Minnesota? Okay, it's just petty stuff that a politician probably should have been a little more on top of. Along with a questionable excuse to pull over a car/outdated law, IMO. But nothing serious yet. And that's when a story about five domestic assault cases shows up, as local news channels were requesting police records from various departments about the traffic stop/suspended license/etc: https://www.startribune.com/walz-repeats-insistence-that-rep-thompson-resign/600079460/ quote:Gov. Tim Walz on Monday again insisted that state Rep. John Thompson resign over reports of multiple domestic violence accusations as House DFL leaders considered what to do about the lawmaker's refusal to step down. Representative Thompson did put out a statement via his attorney: quote:Jordan Kushner, Thompson's attorney, said in a statement Sunday that the lawmaker "maintains the allegations are false and he was never found guilty of them in a court." He said Thompson "challenges the authenticity of the police reports that have been circulated to the press" and that he and his wife, the only person he would have been with at the time, deny the allegations. He said the reports likely were circulated by law enforcement groups engaged in a "smear campaign" against Thompson. Despite that response, Governor Walz, along with other prominent DFL leaders, is still calling on him to resign: quote:Yet Walz said Monday that he had no reason to dispute the accuracy of the reports. It's been quite the development here so far. We'll see if anything more comes out about this and if Representative Thompson resigns or tries to ride it out. Kalit fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Jul 20, 2021 |
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Jul 20, 2021 14:27
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More Josh Mandel poo poo: https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/status/1429091614052519941 What a loving worm he is.
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Aug 23, 2021 19:59
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Doctor Butts posted:What a loving worm he is. He's since moved on to his two favorite topics: anti-refugee bullshit and liberal media investigations into Vance's nevertrump comments. I had thought that Dems had little chance in the race, but one of these clowns may be bad enough to McSally them the seat.
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Aug 23, 2021 22:01
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I have to say, if the GOP manages to giftwrap a Senate Seat in OHIO, the loving Chud Virginia which is so far gone its almost certainly unrecoverable for generations to come, I will be truly impressed.
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Aug 24, 2021 07:00
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Someone was kind enough to condense the 6 hours of public comment from the Kent County Board of Commissioners yesterday into 25 minutes of crazy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi1i1Z_N8JA I'd expect nothing less from the home of Devos.
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Aug 27, 2021 14:21
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By the way, the Republicans' latest tactic in Virginia is to try to have TMac removed from the ballot because his signature isn't on whatever form you submit to declare your candidacy.
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Aug 27, 2021 17:57
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NinjaPablo posted:Someone was kind enough to condense the 6 hours of public comment from the Kent County Board of Commissioners yesterday into 25 minutes of crazy: Already gone for "for violating YouTube's Community Guidelines."
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Aug 27, 2021 19:13
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NinjaPablo posted:Someone was kind enough to condense the 6 hours of public comment from the Kent County Board of Commissioners yesterday into 25 minutes of crazy: Wait, I thought Kent State was the home of DEVOs.
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Aug 28, 2021 01:51
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How nervous should Virginia be right now? Polls had been showing Dems with a comfortable lead and all of a sudden a Mary Washington poll shows the GOP leading every statewide race.
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Sep 24, 2021 19:55
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Ballz posted:How nervous should Virginia be right now? Polls had been showing Dems with a comfortable lead and all of a sudden a Mary Washington poll shows the GOP leading every statewide race.
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Sep 24, 2021 20:12
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Ballz posted:How nervous should Virginia be right now? Polls had been showing Dems with a comfortable lead and all of a sudden a Mary Washington poll shows the GOP leading every statewide race. I brought up that poll in the US News thread. That poll is currently an outlier and you could argue about its "likely voter" model (and it still has McAuliffe slightly ahead if you account for all polled voters) but the GOP voters are likely very enthused and moved to vote. The anecdotal comments I've gotten from people in the Virginia Dem party is that they're encountering a lot of voter fatigue. You're also six weeks out from a November 2 election, so maybe Dem voters are just too preoccupied to care much about the election right now. I've heard complaints that the Democrats aren't broadcasting enough commercials and GOTV seems confused or more sporadic than it should be. Youngkin is also reportedly not falling into too many self-created Trumpist traps, but the people I'm talking to may not be seeing the bigger picture.
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Sep 24, 2021 20:19
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My impression, as a random VA voter, is that the Dems are leaning very heavily on their most ardent (old, white, upper-middle-class) constituents and their campaign is based entirely on making you scared of Youngkin instead of wanting to vote for McAuliffe. McAuliffe has experience, but the rest of the candidates are nonentities and they are all repeating the most bland boilerplate imaginable with no actual campaign promises. Again, maybe do something besides scare people? The best thing I can say about this slate of candidates is that I only have to withhold my vote from one of them for being a spook. The best thing that's actually happened in my life, vis a vis VA politics, was finally spam-filtering all the email lists the local Democrats put me on so that candidates in other states could message me with subjeect lines like "Feeling small and scared rn" and beg for money. Anyway, I don't believe that Terry McAuliffe is entitled to my vote just for running. But I am promising to ensure that every Democratic candidate has access to my vote, which is just as good.
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Sep 24, 2021 20:46
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Halloween Jack posted:The best thing I can say about this slate of candidates is that I only have to withhold my vote from one of them for being a spook.
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Sep 24, 2021 21:11
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wasn't McAuliffe an inexplicably great governor I'd consider that enough even if his platform consists entirely of "I will run the state like I did last time"
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Sep 24, 2021 21:27
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Halloween Jack posted:Anyway, I don't believe that Terry McAuliffe is entitled to my vote just for running. But I am promising to ensure that every Democratic candidate has access to my vote, which is just as good. The most important thing is no wasted votes
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Sep 24, 2021 21:46
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GreyjoyBastard posted:wasn't McAuliffe an inexplicably great governor All of the recent Dem governors have been good to great in spite of being establishment dems. Helps that the legislature has gotten increasingly progressive and finally broke through a couple years ago to control both houses so we could actually pass some good legislation. I don't think McAuliffe will be as good at Getting poo poo Done as Northam since Northam has had "enact a progressive agenda or get the boot" hanging over his head since the scandal, but all he needs to do is sign whatever the Dem state legislature passes, roadblock any anti-abortion garbage and not cower to the pro-COVID crowd. Also don't wear blackface or sexually harass anyone.
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Sep 24, 2021 23:12
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Will be interesting to see what African American turnout is like after Virginia Democrats rallied around their blackface governor for four years
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Sep 25, 2021 15:53
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VitalSigns posted:Will be interesting to see what African American turnout is like after Virginia Democrats rallied around their blackface governor for four years As always, you have it backwards. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/why-most-black-virginians-dont-want-ralph-northam-resign
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Sep 25, 2021 16:54
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The dynamics are odd, but actually kinda come down to a mix of the electorate being well aware that any other option is worse, but also that they have leverage over Northam and he has to keep them happy if he wants to have anything resembling a career going forward. Open blackmail.
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Sep 25, 2021 17:19
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Pander posted:As always, you have it backwards. Considering the margins that Democrats count on from African Americans, only 58% of them supporting the governor, and 30-some percent wanting him kicked out immediately is not a great sign. Will be interesting to see whether those disastrous numbers only affect Northam or if they carry over to the party that defended governor blackface
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Sep 25, 2021 17:36
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VitalSigns posted:No that's exactly the polling I'm talking about. You think intraparty polling about resignation, with the implication he is replaced by another Democrat, is directly transferable to a general election where the alternate choice is a Republican? Okay, Chris Cilizza.
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Sep 25, 2021 17:43
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I don't know, that's why I said it will be interesting to see whether "have you seen the other guys" is enough to overcome any damage governor blackface may have done to the party. We'll find out soon enough.
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Sep 25, 2021 17:49
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VitalSigns posted:No that's exactly the polling I'm talking about. Northam's poll numbers have been fine and certainly not "disastrous" as things like the pandemic response have been on people's minds a lot more than a 37-year-old college yearbook photo of unknown origins. Remember, that scandal broke in February 2019. Voters have already had two election cycles to "punish" the Dems for not abandoning Northam and both times they instead saw gains. The only people who still bring up the blackface stuff in 2021 have been bad-faith conservatives who have also been flipping their poo poo over Northam bringing down all the Confederate monuments.
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Sep 25, 2021 17:49
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"of unknown origins" lol wasn't it confirmed to be real, like a bunch of people went and checked their yearbooks and yep that's the governor Anyway good to hear that the Virginia Democrats' appalling decision to defend blackface when it's one of their own isn't expected to benefit Republicans.
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Sep 25, 2021 18:35
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Wasn't it more that they decided blackface was more acceptable than sexpest
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Sep 25, 2021 18:55
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Tarezax posted:Wasn't it more that they decided blackface was more acceptable than sexpest Things might have gone a lot differently if Fairfax hadn't had that sexual assault scandal at around that time. It was a real surprise because he was a big rising star too. I think that between the US congressional midterms, the presidential election and the last round of state legislative elections, Virginia has had an election every single year since 2018. That's going to wear down your "wave" voters, especially when you don't have the bad orange man ranting on television and Twitter every day.
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Sep 25, 2021 19:01
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VitalSigns posted:"of unknown origins" lol wasn't it confirmed to be real, like a bunch of people went and checked their yearbooks and yep that's the governor No one knows with certainty who is in that photo and Northam claims he has no idea who put that picture on his yearbook page. Northam -- perhaps because Virginia's Black delegation has his balls in a vice over this -- has been one of the most progressive governors in Virginia's history and has overseen some of the state's biggest voting expansions and re-enfranchisements ever while also literally dismantling the state's monuments to white supremacy. I have no idea who's going to win in November, but if it ends up being a GOP victory it's going to have zero to do with the blackface scandal.
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Sep 25, 2021 19:30
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The picture is literally one guy in blackface and one guy in a klan hood, and it isn't clear which one is Northam You cannot write comedy like this
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Sep 25, 2021 19:38
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Well the most parsimonious explanation for why a yearbook caption would list someone as being in a photo is that they were in that photo. But who knows maybe Republicans had access to precogs who predicted his future political trajectory and slipped an agent into the yearbook team to plant a fake photo to make white prep school students in 1980s Virginia look racist. It's important to teach all sides of the controversy. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Sep 25, 2021 |
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Sep 25, 2021 20:01
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VitalSigns posted:Well the most parsimonious explanation for why a yearbook caption would list someone as being in a photo is that they were in that photo. You can choose to stop making everything about the random thing you want to talk about, you know You could simply not post, it's completely legal
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Sep 25, 2021 21:07
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I would guess Black Americans are far more likely to have a jaded cynical realism than white Americans. Also far less likely to even be surprised by that photo in the first place.
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Sep 25, 2021 22:16
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Eric Cantonese posted:I think that between the US congressional midterms, the presidential election and the last round of state legislative elections, Virginia has had an election every single year since 2018. Year N: President, US Reps, sometimes US Senator N+1: Governor, state House N+2: US Reps, sometimes US Senator N+3: State House, state Senate Repeat.
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Sep 26, 2021 23:40
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On the other hand, I just get in the habit of voting every year.
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Sep 27, 2021 00:04
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Monmouth has a new poll out, TMac up by five. https://twitter.com/MonmouthPoll/status/1442534599511482374 Still closer than I'd like but I've heard early voting isn't anything to be alarmed by yet.
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Sep 27, 2021 23:53
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Richmond is a Chud Bastion?
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Sep 28, 2021 03:08
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Sanguinia posted:Richmond is a Chud Bastion? Richmond itself, no. Richmond is being grouped with all of the area around 95
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Sep 28, 2021 03:28
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Reposting from news: I just got an email from AZ DOE saying that the Maricopa County courts struck down the ban on vaccine and mask mandates for schools AND the dumb (but toothless in the final legislative language) 'anti-CRT," laws as unconstitutional! Plus the State Supreme Court refused to stay the ruling which means any schools in the state can not only mandate masks, BUT MANDATE VACCINES while the ruling is being appealed. God drat, this is the best I've felt in a while Our district won't do poo poo though.
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Sep 29, 2021 20:50
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Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, who despite having complete authority over the Minneapolis Police Department decided to sit around with his thumb up his rear end while his police went to war with the citizens of Minneapolis for a week last summer, is up for re-election this year. He held a backyard conversation with some of his constituents. https://twitter.com/dreadpiratejene/status/1443421662100299778
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Oct 1, 2021 14:49
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Frey is pretty much on par with Ted Wheeler at this point at just being loving useless at best and complacent at worst. Would be nice to see him get booted out in the coming election. Also lol, that was worth staying till the end for
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Oct 2, 2021 18:12
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Wheeler is almost definitely worse, but frey is a huge waste of oxygen either way.Handsome Ralph posted:Also lol, that was worth staying till the end for indeed
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Oct 2, 2021 20:35
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