2024 Presidential Election thread

[CMRivdogs]

35 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Another part of it might have been that Catholic school was relatively cheaper then than now. I remember specifically that my senior year cost $995/year in tuition, which works out to roughly $4,400/year today. That's pricey, especially when compared to public school, but my same Catholic school today charges $12,300/year.

Do they still qualify for tax exempt status yet receive state and/or federal funding?That's always been one of my political peeves. The money that goes there takes away from those who can't afford private tuitions, yet waters down the level of scholarship in many, if not most, public school districts.
 

Granted it might create a two tiered system (haves in private, have nots in public) but why should I help fund a church supported school that already receives numerous tax breaks? 

[CMRivdogs]

My wife was living in Norfolk, Va during the integration battles of the late 60s. He parents considered sending her to live with relatives in Pennsylvania rather than go to an integrated school. I was in a SW Virginia county during the early years. Surprisingly things seemed to go smoothly. We moved to the city of Roanoke the Spring of 1968, it was still early in the process as the "black" high school was still operating but the transition was underway. Heard lots of noise about protests and potential fights, but nothing developed the two years I was there and the process was completed.

[CMRivdogs]

BTW back in the day many of the "trouble makers" found their way to a couple of nearby "Military" Academies.. for better or worse.

[Tigeraholic1]

26 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Do they still qualify for tax exempt status yet receive state and/or federal funding?That's always been one of my political peeves. The money that goes there takes away from those who can't afford private tuitions, yet waters down the level of scholarship in many, if not most, public school districts.
 

Granted it might create a two tiered system (haves in private, have nots in public) but why should I help fund a church supported school that already receives numerous tax breaks? 

Depends on state legislature. Indiana offers vouchers to families with joint income up to 200K you can get 6K toward private school per year. 

[romad1]

51 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

BTW back in the day many of the "trouble makers" found their way to a couple of nearby "Military" Academies.. for better or worse.

Like a former US President who was the "star" of the bench of that baseball team. 

[ewsieg]

20 hours ago, chasfh said:

<<snip>>And it seems that despite the horror that underpins the suit itself, the only detail they’re really interested in is that of the use of Greek letters as code to thwart FOIA attempts, which sounds really dubious on its face, but which certainly serves their apparent purpose of portraying Gretchen Whitmer as an obfuscating phony baloney. Looks like it’s working, too, since you seemed more exercised about that than about the potential poisoning of Benton Harbor residents by their water.

So with age has come wisdom, thus why I focused on one issue, not the other.  Whitmer is like God on this site so I know there is no way she's going to take any blame on Benton Harbor.  Proof can come out that on day 1 she was told about it and she told her staff to ignore the issue and if I brought that up, I'm sure i'd be told that she didn't have an appointed Emergency Manager and therefore all the blame should be on the locals.  Honestly you guys are amazing at spinning things, so probably so many more ways I can't even conceive of right now.   Heck, she's directly responsible for the death of Brian Woodward and probably others and no one cares.  

I've been lightly aware of the Benton Harbor water issue for some time via the few journalists that are still pursuing the Flint water debacle, not just the Snyder responsibility, but the failed response, to this day.  The little I know is that the State has been aware of lead tests in Benton Harbor for years now.  I can't speak to what, if anything, has been done by locals or state officials to remedy it.  I do know there is no both sidesing on this issue.  If an 'R' was in the governor's mansion, we would hear about it regularly in the main stream media and the implication would be that not enough was being done about it.  

In true Whitmer admin fashion, no one said anything on this email until it got to the point that the Freep picks it up and now the response is that it was an accident.  As the Freep says, they were able to duplicate something like this when told how to do it.  Maybe it was an accident.  What we do know is that in initial FOIA requests, this email was not found because of this apparent mistake.  That is an issue.  At some point we may have another evil white man like Snyder in office and do you want his henchman to utilize something like this?  As pointed out, Michigan govt isn't big on transparency and I particularly don't think that's a good thing, regardless who is in charge.

As for making fun of McBroom over 'symbols' and equating him to a hack, note he led the investigation of the 2020 election in Michigan which debunked the idea that Michigan's votes were stolen from Trump.  A quick google search regarding Snyder and transparency (note i've previously stated he should have done more to push transparency laws) and what do I find, after Snyder released 15k emails which he legally did not have to do, McBroom co-sponsored a bill with a democrat to force more transparency on both the executive and legislative branches.  I can't find any indicate it ever was passed into law.  (https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/02/29/transparency-law-snyder/81117262/)

[gehringer_2]

the one big difference is that BH draws its water from a lead free source and never made any systemic changes that would have ld anyone to think anything in the system could be driving lead levels. (and one of the things that is irritating in these stories is that there is always companion talk about smelly, yellow water, and those things have absolutely zero to do with lead contamination. Lead in water doesn't smell and has no color.) What is probably true in BH is that there are local service lines that contain sections of old lead pipes and those have to be found and replaced, and there is a large program in  place to do exactly that. It's not a matter of a political policy issue like switching water sources was in flint, it's a matter of relatively micro level system maintenance/repair. Like almost everywhere in older American cities, BH is decades behind on their infrastructure upkeep.

Edited September 6, 2023 by gehringer_2

[ewsieg]

40 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

the one big difference is that BH draws its water from a lead free source and never made any systemic changes that would have ld anyone to think anything in the system could be driving lead levels. (and one of the things that is irritating in these stories is that there is always companion talk about smelly, yellow water, and those things have absolutely zero to do with lead contamination. Lead in water doesn't smell and has no color.) What is probably true in BH is that there are local service lines that contain sections of old lead pipes and those have to be found and replaced, and there is a large program in  place to do exactly that. It's not a matter of a political policy issue like switching water sources was in flint, it's a matter of relatively micro level system maintenance/repair. Like almost everywhere in older American cities, BH is decades behind on their infrastructure upkeep.

This is most likely the correct answer, but there is still an argument to be made, especially if we have Republicans in power, that the State/Federal governments should be taking a lead in assisting cities that can't get lead free water to their citizens especially those in impoverished areas that can't take care of it themselves.

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

Do they still qualify for tax exempt status yet receive state and/or federal funding?That's always been one of my political peeves. The money that goes there takes away from those who can't afford private tuitions, yet waters down the level of scholarship in many, if not most, public school districts.
 

Granted it might create a two tiered system (haves in private, have nots in public) but why should I help fund a church supported school that already receives numerous tax breaks? 

Michigan voters voted in a constitutional amendment in 1970 prohibiting public financial aid to any nonpublic school. Someone tried to sue the amendment out of existence on First Amendment freedom of religion grounds—the freedom of religion to demand taxpayer money when they don't pay into the coffers themselves, I guess —and the lawsuit was dismissed.

[pfife]

5 hours ago, ewsieg said:

This is most likely the correct answer, but there is still an argument to be made, especially if we have Republicans in power, that the State/Federal governments should be taking a lead in assisting cities that can't get lead free water to their citizens especially those in impoverished areas that can't take care of it themselves.

isn't this opposite of what happened in flint?  The water change happened after the state "took the lead" in flint.

[oblong]

8 hours ago, pfife said:

isn't this opposite of what happened in flint?  The water change happened after the state "took the lead" in flint.

It is but we gotta find a way to both sides 

[ben9753]

10 hours ago, pfife said:

isn't this opposite of what happened in flint?  The water change happened after the state "took the lead" in flint.

Took the lead and left the lead.

[pfife]

Well played.

[ewsieg]

12 hours ago, pfife said:

isn't this opposite of what happened in flint?  The water change happened after the state "took the lead" in flint.

Exactly the response I expected, and subsequent posts to help cover Whitmer. 

Edited September 7, 2023 by ewsieg

[pfife]

6 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

Exactly the response I expected, and subsequent posts to help cover Whitmer. 

Agree strongly.  Accurate representation of historical fact is exactly the response you should expect from me.   

Edited September 7, 2023 by pfife

[pfife]

What's really troubling is you don't seem to have that expectation of yourself.   

[ewsieg]

13 minutes ago, pfife said:

Agree strongly.  Accurate representation of historical fact is exactly the response you should expect from me.   

Would an ad depicting Whitmer as the person responsible for Brian Woodwards death be accurate than?   I'll follow up on what Chuck said to me, how is that not the most important thing in my post and no one responds to it?

Edited September 7, 2023 by ewsieg

[oblong]

Can someone explain to me why I should care about Gretchen Whitmer in regards to the Flint water crisis?

 

[gehringer_2]

11 minutes ago, oblong said:

Can someone explain to me why I should care about Gretchen Whitmer in regards to the Flint water crisis?

 

That an easy one. Same reason Afghanistan was Joe Bidden's fault.

[chasfh]

ah nm

Edited September 7, 2023 by chasfh

[romad1]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

That an easy one. Same reason Afghanistan was Joe Bidden's fault.

Plenty of people are rightfully mad about how the withdrawal went.    I'd still have done that with improvements in method and process.  They had to reorient resources to China and Russia. 

[ewsieg]

26 minutes ago, oblong said:

Can someone explain to me why I should care about Gretchen Whitmer in regards to the Flint water crisis?

Who is saying you should care?  

[1984Echoes]

23 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Plenty of people are rightfully mad about how the withdrawal went.    I'd still have done that with improvements in method and process.  They had to reorient resources to China and Russia. 

That was not a method & process problem...

That was entirely an intelligence failure.

"We're good for a couple years as the Afghan forces can hold off the Taliban."

"Oh wait, the Afghani forces melted into the wind and the Taliban forces have just taken Khabul... RUN!!!"

[romad1]

3 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

That was not a method & process problem...

That was entirely an intelligence failure.

"We're good for a couple years as the Afghan forces can hold off the Taliban."

"Oh wait, the Afghani forces melted into the wind and the Taliban forces have just taken Khabul... RUN!!!"

To quote Cy Curnin:  

One Thing Leads to Another - Wikipedia

[pfife]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

Would an ad depicting Whitmer as the person responsible for Brian Woodwards death be accurate than?   I'll follow up on what Chuck said to me, how is that not the most important thing in my post and no one responds to it?

I said I do accurate representations of HISTORY.   I'm not particularly concerned about YOUSTORY.