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so does maga still worship tucker carlson
FAFO
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Must read. it's the current national picture down to scale. Far right wing ideology, valuing conformity over experience, cronyism, graft, internal power struggles leading to splintering, a willingness to let it all burn rather than govern, etc
www.texasmonthly.com
A Far-Right Faction Took Power in Odessa. Then It Had to Govern.
After hard-liners purged the civil workforce, they found it difficult to provide standard city services.
www.texasmonthly.com
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lawtig02
Inconceivable Member
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Ah, Odessa. Shocking they’d put passion over principles.Must read. it's the current national picture down to scale. Far right wing ideology, valuing conformity over experience, cronyism, graft, internal power struggles leading to splintering, a willingness to let it all burn rather than govern, etc
A Far-Right Faction Took Power in Odessa. Then It Had to Govern.
After hard-liners purged the civil workforce, they found it difficult to provide standard city services.
- Messages
- 447
Great read!Must read. it's the current national picture down to scale. Far right wing ideology, valuing conformity over experience, cronyism, graft, internal power struggles leading to splintering, a willingness to let it all burn rather than govern, etc
A Far-Right Faction Took Power in Odessa. Then It Had to Govern.
After hard-liners purged the civil workforce, they found it difficult to provide standard city services.
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Similar vein, but more Libertarian failure than right wing zealots:
www.texasobserver.org
The Rise and Fall of the 'Freest Little City in Texas'
How a libertarian experiment in city government fell apart over taxes, debt and some very angry people.
www.texasobserver.org
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Some follow up news from this town. (red text from the Texas Observer original article)Similar vein, but more Libertarian failure than right wing zealots:
The Rise and Fall of the 'Freest Little City in Texas'
How a libertarian experiment in city government fell apart over taxes, debt and some very angry people.
“Trina just wanted the power, but she didn’t know anything,” Suarez said. “All she wanted to do was just scream about how she’s in charge and order people around. She would scream at people, and that’s not how you do things.”
Ex-Von Ormy mayor Trina Reyes charged over Jan. 6 Capitol riot
"The crisis of government in Von Ormy doesn’t present itself at first glance. The town is located on I-35 just south of the Medina River, where San Antonio’s impressive sprawl gives way to the scrub brush of South Texas. There’s a post office, of course, plus some gas stations, a diner, a trailer home dealer and the MGM Cabaret strip club."
Von Ormy strip club owner accused of sex-trafficking
Then in September, the dispute was finally brought to an end when Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau wrote a letter to Mayor Reyes. Pamerleau said her department would no longer provide dispatch services because there was simply “too much instability” in the department. Without dispatch services, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement quickly pulled the Von Ormy PD’s accreditation.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has been patrolling the town ever since. The three patrol cars Von Ormy had received as a donation from Bexar County ended up in Reyes’ yard. After her term ended in May, they were moved in front of City Hall.
Jake Galvan, a retired mechanic, says that the police department was an embarrassment to the town and the source of rumors about misconduct and other illegal behavior.
Three Von Ormy police officers seriously injured in the last six months
In September, one officer was hit by a suspected drunk driver. Last week, a sergeant escaped from a burning car. Over the weekend, a third officer was stabbed.At the time, Martinez de Vara was an ambitious third-year law student at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, a local boy with a penchant for Texas history and right-wing politics.
Martinez de Vara suggested a compromise of sorts. Von Ormy could become a “liberty city” — a stripped-down, low-tax, low-government version of municipal government that’s currently en vogue among the tea party in Texas.
Initially, the city would impose property and sales taxes, but the property tax would ratchet down to zero over time. The business-friendly environment would draw new economic activity to Von Ormy, and eventually the town would cruise along on sales taxes alone.
...
“If things don’t change, we’re going to be in trouble in, I’d say, two years. We’ll have to start borrowing to get the roads fixed.”
He pins the town’s woes on Martinez de Vara’s crusade to establish other liberty cities, a common complaint heard in Von Ormy.
“I’ll give him credit, he’s the one who got the city going,” he said. “But then, all of a sudden, he drops out. He’s up in Austin. He’s too busy.”
A roundup of Bexar County's small-town election results
Residents in the county's many suburban communities cast 9,621 votes in 27 contests for mayor, council and other measures.
sanantonioreport.org
Art Martinez de Vara, who previously served as mayor of the southwestern burg from 2008 to 2015, took 66% of the vote for mayor over Amanda Alcozer’s 33%.
A lawyer and historian, Martinez de Vara is representing the Conservation Society of San Antonio in its lawsuit against the University of Texas at San Antonio and the City of San Antonio to stop the demolition of the Institute of Texan Cultures building.
In a victory post to social media following the election, the new mayor thanked supporters and stated, “Onward in liberty!”
Homer, who has been at odds with commissioners over governance issues, balancing the city budget and taxation, said he plans to continue helping the city.
“I’m a business owner here, I’ve got properties here, got investments here,” he said. “The city has a lot of opportunity ahead of it.”
Running unopposed, Sebastian Martinez and Ramon Guzman were reelected to the three-member board of commissioners.
As mayor, Martinez de Vara’s first priority was to lure chain stores with the town’s low-tax, low-regulation branding. But there was a problem: Von Ormy lacked a sewer system and it would be expensive to connect to San Antonio’s main wastewater system. The San Antonio Water System, which services most of Bexar County, told town officials that the connection would cost $4 million to $5 million.
According to Reyes, City Administrator James Massey recommended floating a bond, standard practice for most cities. But Martinez de Vara rejected the recommendation. Liberty cities aren’t supposed to take on debt, after all. (Martinez de Vara didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment.)
City of Von Ormy sees end to long wait for sewer system
The lack of sewer infrastructure in this corner of Bexar County has slowed development and challenged the city's volatile governing body.
sanantonioreport.org
First in indoor plumbing, Von Ormy sees potential end to long wait for sewer system
The $3 million grant from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was championed by Precinct 1 Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores and supports the planning, acquisition and design of the system to make it shovel-ready....
In addition to money from the county, another $1.25 million has been secured through the federal government’s allocation for community projects from the fiscal year 2024 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
Second, some were beginning to sour on the liberty city model. On the five-member City Council, three council members — Jacqueline Goede, Verna Hernandez and Carmina Aguilar — had banded together in a bloc that was increasingly at odds with Martinez de Vara and the two other council members, one of whom was Sally Martinez. The most explosive issue was property taxes. The three women thought it was foolish to eliminate property taxes altogether. Sales taxes rise and fall with the economy, and few cities rely on them alone.
“As new as we are and as small as we are, to grow we need those taxes,” Goede told the Express-News. “We need them desperately.”
What ensued was a confusing series of boycotted meetings, obscure loopholes and eventually a possibly illegal hearing that landed the three women briefly in jail. In September 2014, Martinez de Vara had formally proposed zeroing out the property tax, but Goede, Hernandez and Aguilar voted it down 3-2 and, at least for five days, kept the property tax in place. However, to formally ratify the rate, per state law, at least four council members needed to hold another meeting to vote, but Sally Martinez and Debra Ivy refused to show up to any hearing with ratification on the agenda. The result: Martinez de Vara got his way and the property tax rate was eliminated.
Chaos unfolds at Von Ormy commissioners meeting
An angry crowd, a controversial city employee, a failed attempt to pass a budget, and even an arrest were part of a Wednesday morning meeting.
Chaos unfolds at Von Ormy commissioners meeting
An angry crowd, a controversial city employee, a failed attempt to pass a budget, and even an arrest were part of a chaotic Von Ormy Board of Commissioners meeting Wednesday morning.The mayor and two city commissioners of the small city in Southwest Bexar County had been scheduled to vote on the city budget and tax rate following a public hearing at the municipal building. However, an issue with the timing of required public notices meant the vote was delayed for at least the second time.
Dozens of residents - many of them angry with City Administrator Valerie Naff - gathered for the meeting. But with the city’s police department enforcing a 35-person capacity on the building, most were left outside and had to cycle through as space became available.
One woman was taken out in handcuffs before KSAT could enter the building. A Von Ormy police lieutenant said she was arrested for disrupting the meeting.
The crowd inside was vocal and openly antagonistic toward Naff, who sat at the table with the board.
Several people wore shirts reading “no salary for Valerie” and “keep Von Ormy tax free” in reference to a budget proposal the city administrator had put forward, which has since been replaced by one from Mayor Casey Homer.
“This ain’t going well at all,” he said. “We’ve got a bunch of empty buildings, a lot of [federal] grant money spent, and for what? We have a fire station that nobody wants to operate and a police station with no police. Where did all that money go?”
Family advocating for Von Ormy fire station after death of grandmother, two young children
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^ to be clear on that one point: this town that refused to have taxes and wanted to raise money on Sales tax, but could't attract businesses because they didn't have had sewers, but refused to raise taxes to build the sewers - MAY be getting them now some two decades later because of two of Biden's programs. Assuming the big Beautiful Bill didn't wipe those out.
Centerpiece
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Exact replica of D.C. now. You are spot on.Ah, Odessa. Shocking they’d put passion over principles.
Hopefully, with a lot of luck, the outcomes will be similar too.
Enough people get fed up with it all and elect “normal” people who know how to govern.
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Republican complains his constituents are 'really struggling' due to Trump's policies
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) criticized on Sunday President Donald Trump's threats to media outlets and a number of other policies, saying his actions threaten fundamental American values. “We have to protect freedom of speech [and] press,” Bacon said in an interview with CNN's Manu Raju aired Sunday...
www.alternet.org
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Kansas sorghum farmers will have their biggest yield in years. But tariffs killed the market
Kansas farmers are hurting after China’s retaliatory tariffs on the United States closed a major market for the state’s biggest crop. Despite a productive year, farmers across Kansas may not break even.
www.hppr.org
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‘Patients Will Wait Longer:’ $100,000 Visa Fee Risks Worsening Doctor Shortage
The Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for high-skilled visa applicants threatens to worsen a shortage of US doctors and make it harder for rural hospitals to operate, medical groups warned.
www.bloomberg.com
The Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for high-skilled visa applicants threatens to worsen a shortage of US doctors and make it harder for rural hospitals to operate, medical groups warned.
The fee for H-1B visas “risks shutting off the pipeline of highly trained physicians that patients depend on, especially in rural and underserved communities,” said American Medical Association President Bobby Mukkamala, a Michigan head and neck surgeon.
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Guess Bezos didn't kiss ass hard enough
gizmodo.com
The Trump Admin Is Suing Amazon for Tricking People Into Prime Subscriptions. Here's How That Might Affect You
The FTC is claiming that Amazon made cancelling a subscription tough on purpose.
gizmodo.com
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When ICE Shows Up at a Factory, What Can a Governor Do?
“I’m used to being able to solve problems,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said as she visited a factory where immigration officials arrested 57 people.
News of the raid prompted an outcry from immigrant advocates and from Ms. Hochul, the state’s Democratic governor, who last week flew to Cato — a small town in rural Cayuga County, where voters chose Mr. Trump by a 39-point margin in last year’s election — to hear the Schmidt family’s stories, and offer what support she could.
...
Mark Schmidt, 70, who founded the company with his late father in 1978, told Ms. Hochul how deeply the raid had shaken the family. “These people have been part of our community for 10, 20, 30 years. We know them,” he said. “I mean, these families have been pulled apart.”
The governor listened carefully as the Schmidts told their stories. She told them how she had called Mr. Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan, to demand that the families be reunited — particularly nursing mothers with babies. She was still waiting.
....
For nearly 50 years, the Schmidt family has been making nutrition bars — first under the name Increda-Meal, and later as the decidedly more modern Nutrition Bar Confectioners. It’s the kind of multigenerational family business that so many Americans dream of building and politicians of both parties praise.
This year, the family said the company was on track to make 250 million snack bars, paying each of their 226 workers a respectable $16.25 an hour, plus benefits.
Today, the plant is running at roughly 25 percent of capacity, with numerous production lines standing still and orders for granola bars, fruit bars and protein bars piling up.
...
At the table, Ms. Hochul listened as Mr. Schmidt’s eldest son, Lenny Schmidt, described how federal agents had stopped him the morning of the Sept. 4 raid as he was coming to work. He said he arrived to find roughly 75 law enforcement agents bearing machine guns, and coming with dogs, trucks, vans and dune buggies — what the elder Mr. Schmidt described as “a massive military-style assault.”
Mr. Schmidt’s sons recalled a frightening story that they said law enforcement shared with them: Two murderers were inside the facility and the officials were there to pick them up.
“They said they don’t want to be here any longer than they need to be,” Lenny Schmidt, 49, recalled. “I said: ‘Please, do what you’ve got to do. We’ll sit tight.’”
They waited for hours, then watched as dozens of their employees, many of them women, were loaded onto a bus not to be seen again. At least three of those who were deported were mothers with babies under the age of 1, state officials said.
...
In the village, four men eating pizza at a lunch spot said that raids such as the one at the confectionary plant were necessary to “clean up” the Biden administration’s lax immigration policies.
While they didn’t have anything bad to say about the Schmidts, they also were not especially sympathetic to their plight.
In a way, the elder Mr. Schmidt understands. He voted for Mr. Trump and donated to his 2024 campaign. He said he believed Mr. Trump would go after “the worst of the worst,” as he said on the campaign trail, rather than hardworking longtime residents.
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Poor, Conservative School Districts Are Getting Hit Hard By the GOP’s Funding Freeze
This story about public school funding was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent...
talkingpointsmemo.com
ASHE COUNTY, N.C. — In the time it took to read an email, the federal money vanished before Superintendent Eisa Cox’s eyes: dollars that supported the Ashe County school district’s after-school program, training for its teachers, salaries for some jobs.
The email from the Department of Education arrived June 30, one day before the money — $1.1 million in total — was set to materialize for the rural western North Carolina district. Instead, the dollars had been frozen pending a review to make sure the money was spent “in accordance with the President’s priorities,” the email said.
In a community still recovering from Hurricane Helene, where more than half of students are considered economically disadvantaged, Cox said there was no way they could replace that federal funding. “It is scary to think about it, you’re getting ready to open school and not have a significant pot of funds,” she said.
School leaders across the country were reeling from the same news. The $1.1 million was one small piece of a nearly $7 billion pot of federal funding for thousands of school districts that the Trump administration froze — money approved by Congress and that schools were scheduled to receive on July 1. For weeks, leaders in Ashe County and around the country scrambled to figure out how they could avoid layoffs and fill financial holes — until the money was freed July 25, after an outcry from legislators and a lawsuit joined by two dozen states.
“I had teachers crying, staff members crying. They thought they were going to lose their jobs a week before school,” said Curtis Finch, superintendent of Deer Valley Unified School District in Phoenix.
Now, as educators welcome students back to classrooms, they can no longer count on federal dollars as they once did. They must learn to plan without a playbook under a president intent on cutting education spending. For many districts, federal money is a small but crucial sliver of their budgets, potentially touching every part of a school’s operations, from teacher salaries to textbooks. Nationally, it accounts for about 14 percent of public school funding; in Ashe County, it’s 17 percent. School administrators are examining their resources now and budgeting for losses to funding that was frozen this summer, for English learners, after-school and other programs.
Ddseddse
Honored Member
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I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of how a shakedown works. It's got nothing to do with ass kissing and everything to do with payola. Put a pin in this and wait for the new that the suit had been dropped.Guess Bezos didn't kiss ass hard enough
The Trump Admin Is Suing Amazon for Tricking People Into Prime Subscriptions. Here's How That Might Affect You
The FTC is claiming that Amazon made cancelling a subscription tough on purpose.
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Maybe Junior wants a bio-documentary, too.
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- 6,948
This administration never thinks anything through. Every decision is a reality tv response.‘Patients Will Wait Longer:’ $100,000 Visa Fee Risks Worsening Doctor Shortage
The Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for high-skilled visa applicants threatens to worsen a shortage of US doctors and make it harder for rural hospitals to operate, medical groups warned.
The Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for high-skilled visa applicants threatens to worsen a shortage of US doctors and make it harder for rural hospitals to operate, medical groups warned.
The fee for H-1B visas “risks shutting off the pipeline of highly trained physicians that patients depend on, especially in rural and underserved communities,” said American Medical Association President Bobby Mukkamala, a Michigan head and neck surgeon.
Mulberry Heel
Inconceivable Member
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- 3,072
I have a friend who is a teacher in a school that gets federal funding for its Gear Up program. It's designed to help kids in lower-income schools prepare for college in a variety of ways, including paying for field trips for groups of students to tour colleges and universities in their area, helping kids whose parents never went to college with help with obtaining funding, the college application process, etc., increasing HS graduation rates, and so on. It actually starts at the middle school level. My friend said that it's a good program and does help disadvantaged kids with the college preparation and application process in many ways. However, Trump 2.0 just cut the funding, so the school's entire Gear Up program has been cancelled after the school year started. It's almost as if Trump and his minions don't want disadvantaged, mostly minority kids going to college. Nah, surely that couldn't be a reason, right? <rolls eyes>Poor, Conservative School Districts Are Getting Hit Hard By the GOP’s Funding Freeze
This story about public school funding was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent...talkingpointsmemo.com
ASHE COUNTY, N.C. — In the time it took to read an email, the federal money vanished before Superintendent Eisa Cox’s eyes: dollars that supported the Ashe County school district’s after-school program, training for its teachers, salaries for some jobs.
The email from the Department of Education arrived June 30, one day before the money — $1.1 million in total — was set to materialize for the rural western North Carolina district. Instead, the dollars had been frozen pending a review to make sure the money was spent “in accordance with the President’s priorities,” the email said.
In a community still recovering from Hurricane Helene, where more than half of students are considered economically disadvantaged, Cox said there was no way they could replace that federal funding. “It is scary to think about it, you’re getting ready to open school and not have a significant pot of funds,” she said.
School leaders across the country were reeling from the same news. The $1.1 million was one small piece of a nearly $7 billion pot of federal funding for thousands of school districts that the Trump administration froze — money approved by Congress and that schools were scheduled to receive on July 1. For weeks, leaders in Ashe County and around the country scrambled to figure out how they could avoid layoffs and fill financial holes — until the money was freed July 25, after an outcry from legislators and a lawsuit joined by two dozen states.
“I had teachers crying, staff members crying. They thought they were going to lose their jobs a week before school,” said Curtis Finch, superintendent of Deer Valley Unified School District in Phoenix.
Now, as educators welcome students back to classrooms, they can no longer count on federal dollars as they once did. They must learn to plan without a playbook under a president intent on cutting education spending. For many districts, federal money is a small but crucial sliver of their budgets, potentially touching every part of a school’s operations, from teacher salaries to textbooks. Nationally, it accounts for about 14 percent of public school funding; in Ashe County, it’s 17 percent. School administrators are examining their resources now and budgeting for losses to funding that was frozen this summer, for English learners, after-school and other programs.
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Mulberry Heel
Inconceivable Member
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- 3,072
US soybean farmers - most of whom voted for Trump - are in dire shape due to his trade wars leading China to purchase soybeans elsewhere. And now many soybean farmers said they feel "betrayed" after Trump 2.0 agreed to help Argentina's strongman keep his economy afloat after his policies have wrecked Argentina's economy. "Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on social media on Wednesday that he and Trump spoke at length with Argentina president Javier Milei about plants to financially support Argentina to assist in its stabilization. The Treasury is negotiating with Argentina for a $20 billion swap line with Argentina’s central bank, Bessent said on X.com. As part of its effort to increase the flow of capital, Argentina also suspended its export taxes this week, including on soybeans."
Yet at the same time we're giving all this aid and assistance to them, Argentina has also been working to replace the US as a major soybean trading partner with China. They recently sold 10 cargoes of soybeans to China.
“The frustration is overwhelming,” the American Soybean Association (ASA) President Caleb Ragland said in a statement on Wednesday. “U.S. soybean prices are falling, harvest is underway, and farmers read headlines not about securing a trade agreement with China, but that the U.S. government is extending $200 billion in economic support to Argentina while that country drops its soybean export taxes to sell 20 shiploads of Argentine soybeans to China in just two days.” “The farm economy is suffering while our competitors supplant the United States in the biggest soybean import market in the world,” it concluded.
Looks like many American farmers have entered the FAFO stage in a big, big way.
Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/frustration-overwhelming-soybean-farmers-feel-181414550.html
Yet at the same time we're giving all this aid and assistance to them, Argentina has also been working to replace the US as a major soybean trading partner with China. They recently sold 10 cargoes of soybeans to China.
“The frustration is overwhelming,” the American Soybean Association (ASA) President Caleb Ragland said in a statement on Wednesday. “U.S. soybean prices are falling, harvest is underway, and farmers read headlines not about securing a trade agreement with China, but that the U.S. government is extending $200 billion in economic support to Argentina while that country drops its soybean export taxes to sell 20 shiploads of Argentine soybeans to China in just two days.” “The farm economy is suffering while our competitors supplant the United States in the biggest soybean import market in the world,” it concluded.
Looks like many American farmers have entered the FAFO stage in a big, big way.
Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/frustration-overwhelming-soybean-farmers-feel-181414550.html
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- 894
they will still suck off dump b/c they will get that bailout money that they so preach against if someone else is getting it...and they hate you baby-killin trans loving libturds more than life itself
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