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Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

nbcphiladelphia.com

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Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#201

Post by lotsofpulp »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #93
umvi wrote: post #2

Any (relatively) unbiased sources that explain how NJ got into this predicament? Just current leadership being out of touch with the wants/needs of NJ citizens?

Many NJ residents work(ed) in NY. Of which, many are high earners who could be contributing significant amounts to the state tax rolls but NY claims income tax from anyone who commutes there. To make up the difference towns have to jack up property taxes. Things should hopefully change with remote work not happening in NY anymore.

NJ's debt per taxpayer is multiple standard deviations above the norm. On the order of $60k per taxpayer versus $10k to $20k in other states. That is just at the state level, who knows what is going at the city level, and there are a ton of tiny fiefdoms with highly paid personnel.

https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/FSOS-Bookle...

I do not see anyway out of repaying these debts from previous decades with higher taxes compared to other states.

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#202

Post by argomo »

voz_ wrote: post #130
vkou wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has always been a socially liberal, bend-over-backwards for business town. It's how it can legalize marijuana and magic mushrooms, while having 11,000 people living in tents and homeless shelters. Unsurprisingly, since nobody likes seeing tents in city parks, and by the I-5 on-ramps, the city voted for a slate of politicians that will... Maintain the status quo. There's no plan for getting ~5,500 people house…

I don't want status quo, but I also don't want them housed. I want the ones that steal, rape, squat in parks, do drugs, sell drugs, defecate in public, and litter to all be thrown in jail.

Is jail appropriate for litterers? Seems extreme, but I might be able to get behind it. Let's start with the folks who throw fast food wrappers out on the interstate though, not the homeless we wish to criminalize.

Throwing them in jail seems like the worst of both worlds... it burns my tax dollars and does nothing to rehabilitate anyone.

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#203

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

koolba wrote: post #103
jamroom wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mail in voting is still secret ballot - you have an internal "secrecy sleeve" that is in turn mailed in an outer envelope. The outer envelope signature is compared to the signature on file, and then the internal envelope is removed but is not opened in the same location. https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/wa_vbm.pdf https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/11/politics/barr-secret-vote-fac...

That doesn't stop a determined group of canvassers from going door to door and pressuring people to fill out their ballots on the spot while they wait on their doorstep. It's also a perfect time to offer a bribe or incentive for a speedy completion. There's no way that any form of remote ballot is going to be as secure as doing it in person. It's just not possible because you will never know the provenance. Like most…

I actually wonder how viable it would be to devise a targeted ballot spoiling attack.

Picture this:

Have a canvasser or harvester pick up mail in ballots. They take it to a safe house and open the envelopes. If it’s a vote for the candidate they don’t like, put marks on it so it doesn’t get counted. Place it in a new return envelope.

You’ve just cancelled that person’s vote. If someone checked that their vote was counted they wouldn’t be able to see that it was spoilt.

You could potentially just throw away the ballot too, I doubt most people check that they were actually received. But it does seem slightly more likely to raise eyebrows. I’m sure you could chalk it up to just getting lost at the post office.

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#204

Post by Intermernet »

post_break wrote: post #166
tootie wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so bonkers. America has the most unfettered gun ownership laws in the developed world by a mile and somehow it's still a political wedge that can outweigh healthcare, fair taxation, education.

Show me someone who is for healthcare, unions, college, but also doesn't want to take a black marker to the second amendment, I'll wait. Until the left stops going after guns, single issue voters will keep voting the way they do.

Have you ever considered why there is a strong correlation between beliefs in healthcare, unions and college and a belief in gun control laws?

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#205

Post by mikestew »

yeuxardents wrote: post #97
post_break wrote: post #77

I find this part hilarious "Durr said he entered the race after being denied a concealed carry permit despite having a clean record." So the state with one of the most strict gun laws burns someone, and now he's probably going to win. I wonder if he's going to start turning screws to get their permit issue laws changed. Did you know in NJ you can not posses hollow point bullets? You can go to jail. 18 months in priso…

Thats not exactly correct. You can own hollow points in NJ, but you may only transport them from place of purchase to your home, or from your home directly to the range where you intend to shoot them, or from range back to home. It is most certainly illegal to use hollow points in any instance in a case of self defense, even if the self defense is warranted.

It is most certainly illegal to use hollow points in any instance in a case of self defense

What the hell else am I supposed to do with hollow points but shoot someone? Target practice? That's a waste of good ammo and money. I lean left enough to feel that our gun laws are way too lax, but this particular law as described is just pointless posturing. It reminds me of "cop killer bullets". Umm, you mean rifle rounds, that can penetrate an armored vest? No, you mean a Teflon coating?[0] Well, turns out...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teflon-coated_bullet

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#206

Post by twofornone »

soperj wrote: post #132
jterrys wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not up to date on city politics, but I had a friend that used to live in Seattle for a while. She kind of hightailed it outta there once she found a remote job because of the homelessness/drug problem. Told me people protested the museum downtown for installing architecture that made setting up homeless tents hostile, and that the city's solution to the drug problem (induced by already decriminalizing hard drugs)…

You say that like the war on drugs is the solution? Do you think that any of these people don't use drugs because it's a crime? It's just making their life worse.

As I've gotten older I've realized that there's something to be said for the discouraging effect that laws have on certain behaviors. Yes, people are still going to do drugs if they're illegal; but some proportion of the population is less likely to take the risk. Is it enough to justify the drug war? Maybe not. But I don't think it's quite as cut an dry as "legalize all drugs to end drug abuse" or "ban all drugs to end drug use".

Perhaps it was only an implementation problem, and the answer lies in saner but still restrictive drug laws. There's no excuse for example for the scheduling of marijuana and mushrooms which precludes research.

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#207

Post by vkou »

spoonjim wrote: post #150
celtain wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear though, that was a somewhat unusual race, e.g. the incumbent progressive Democrat probably would have won if he hadn't been knocked out in the primary. The ex-Democrat, Obama/Clinton/Biden-voting Republican who won benefited greatly from the fact that her opponent had some pretty radical views, too radical even for Seattle.

The primary system is so corrosive. If American constitutional government is to survive the primary system needs to end. You need to be rich or a wingnut to win a primary.

Seattle city primaries look nothing like federal congressional/presidential primaries.

They are best described as two-round run-off elections, which, while not perfect, are generally preferable to first-past-the-post.

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#208

Post by colinmhayes »

busymom0 wrote: post #183
subsubzero wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You take guns away and they use knives and cleavers. Look to London for what would happen with guns being banned. The solution is to not ban an object but provide opportunities for people. Jobs, education, paths that pave roads to a career. Nothing drives more people to crime than feeling like they are in a hopeless situation.

> knives and cleavers or vans here in Canada. According to the FBI homicide stats for US, 297 people were murdered by a rifle in 2018 in the US. 1,515 on the other hand murdered with knives, 443 from blunt hammers, 672 with hands, feet: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-... EDIT: I specifically stated "rifle" not all guns. Because saying we need to take away all guns is pie in the sky thinki…

2/3 of murders were with guns. Would people still kill each if they didn't have guns? obviously. Would they do it less? Hard to say since research into gun violence is banned by the government.

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#209

Post by busymom0 »

davidw wrote: post #38
busymom0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids have the most psychological development from looking at people's faces, emotions and smiles. Saying that's a "minor inconvenience" is silly. Especially since there's negligible risks for them. And mandating something which neither prevents catching, nor transmitting the virus is definitely not a "minor inconvenience". EDIT: In my last sentence, I wasn't referring to masks. I was referring to vaccine mandates whi…

> And mandating something which neither prevents catching, nor transmitting the virus is definitely not a "minor inconvenience". They have studied this though. Actual scientists, not people on Youtube or Facebook, and they have found that masks diminish the transmission of COVID-19. This is kind of what you'd expect with something airborne.

I wasn't referring to masks in that statement. I was referring to vaccine mandates.

Re: Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

#210

Post by tehjoker »

clarge1120 wrote: post #74
davidw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And mandating something which neither prevents catching, nor transmitting the virus is definitely not a "minor inconvenience". They have studied this though. Actual scientists, not people on Youtube or Facebook, and they have found that masks diminish the transmission of COVID-19. This is kind of what you'd expect with something airborne.

The risk from infection is small enough to be considered zero. There is no reason to mask the children.

Explain that to the kids that died or the older relatives that got sick from the infected kids.
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