Democrats are running on hate Trump
Since Ronald Regan ran (and was the first President I voted for)... I have never been a Democrat.
Sadly, today the only choice that keeps Democracy safe IS a Democrat. Trump has killed the GOP and turned it into a cult of personality. It will take years and years before it will come back to what it was. What the Democrats are running on is the absolute threat to our Democracy that Trump presents. Hell, he tells people that regularly, but they just consider it more BS that he spews and that he doesn't "really mean it". You can see that regularly by those MAGA sycophants currently in office trying to explain his statements away by using a form of that "he doesn't mean what he says".
Why do you think there has been a defection of long term Republicans from the party? Why do you thin that in 2020 down-ticket Republicans won office and Trump couldn't carry the load to get that top one. No, it wasn't because of cheating, because if a party was going to go that extent to cheat to get their candidate in office, they'd also make sure that they got enough in office in the House and the Senate to be able to get their policy pushed through. The Republicans actually gained seats in the house in 2020, but it wasn't enough to keep the Democrats from keeping a majority. Then in 2022 the Republicans GAINED the majority in the House. If the Democrats had such a successful cheating machine in place that after years and years of accusation, investigation and claims and not being able to show proof of any o f it, why would they not have used it to maintain control of the House and then all three seats, the Presidency, the Senate and the House so they could get their socialist/communist/fascist/alien agendas passed?
Abortion is their only potential plus point., otherwise it is more of world conflicts, more gender reassignment, more trans in women's sports, more trans in women's changing rooms, border still an issue, more green policies causing black outs and higher heating costs. Electric technology is not good enough yet to meet their electric vehicle targets.
Oh lordy.... this is rich.
What business of YOURS is it if someone wants to whack their outie off and replace it with an innie? If you believe Trumps claims of the schools snatching the children out and forcing (or coercing) them into gender reassignment surgeries you have totally lost touch with reality.
I don't agree with transgenders being able to participate in sports of the other sex EVEN if they have gone through medical transition, as generally if it is a male transitioning to a female, they have an immediate genetic advantage in most cases due to the bone structure and musculature of a male. I also believe that there should be bathrooms set aside for transgender male & female for their use unless they have gone through surgical transition. Once surgical transition has been done, explain to me what the difference of a transitioned female going into a females bathroom and committing a sexual crime and a heterosexual female doing it? Other than a preconceived notion that because they used to be the opposite sex it caused the attack? That's junk "science" and a fear of someone different. Odds are if we ever do make contact with an alien species, it will be those self-same folks that whine and spread fear about this that will be showing the same xenophobia that they do against human "aliens" and people in the LGBTQ lifestyle.
As for more "blackouts"... Jesus H. Christ, I live in Texas and I can promise you that the reason that we have blackouts and brownouts is not because of "green energy", but because of the lack of the ability of our Republican government to resolve infrastructure issues that they have known about in the decades they have been in power.
In Texas, around 31% of our energy is produced from renewable resources. In fact, recently those renewable resources were some of the ONLY things that kept us from having more black/brown outs during our heat wave, which according to our Republican government our infrastructure was designed for and only had issues with extremely cold weather that we don't normally get.
As for electric vehicle technology, it's solid enough that if there was infrastructure in place for widespread charging, it would work decently, and I'd go so far to say as pretty well. The problem is here in Texas the actual line infrastructure. The agencies that oversee the departments involved are controlled by Republicans and they appoint Republicans. And we all know that Republicans want to "drill baby, drill". Now, let's ignore the fact that currently the US is producing more fossil fuels than it ever has, exceeding even the what most think are the top countries because that is what they hear.
According to EIA.gov (the agency in the US that keeps track of energy production stats) in 2022 were:
- United States14.7%
- Saudi Arabia13.2%
- Russia12.7%
- Canada5.6%
- Iraq5.5%
And 2023 and 2024 the US maintained the lead and in fact generated even MORE.
In fact, during the period Trump was in office, the US generated LESS than Russia or Saudi Arabia. It was not until 2018 that the US production overtook the other countries. And no, that was not due to Trump. The neck of the woods in Texas that I live in is well known for oil production. In fact, you may want to look up the history of Lubbock Texas. And check out the reserves for the Permian Basin.
And living in Texas (which is definitely a border state), I can safely say that in my area we don't have a major issue with migrant crime. In fact, generally the ones you see in the paper getting arrested for stuff are those "good old U.S. citizens".
During the 10-year span from 2013 to 2022, the homicide conviction rate in Texas was 2.2 per 100,000 illegal immigrants, 1.2 per 100,000 legal immigrants, and 3.0 per 100,000 native-born Americans. And yes, a large number of those illegal immigrant charges were from gang related activity. But notice, our good old US citizens have a higher rate and the immigrants that are here legally are the lowest of all.
In Texas, we had over 5.1 million foreign born persons in Texas.
From a recent (09/24) report
An NIJ-funded study examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety estimated the rate at which undocumented immigrants are arrested for committing crimes. The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.
Even better (and this is Texas specific) is this chart drawn directly from Texas data (remember, Texas is ran by the GOP) of overall crime rate by group.
Amazing, those "nasty illegal shipped in gang members from other countries" have the LOWEST arrest rate of the 3 classes.
And this carries through with the violent crime rate (drawn on the same CCH -computerized criminal history system that Texas runs) of violent crime.
For the period of 2012 to 2018, the total drug crime arrest rate was 337.2 per 100,000 for U.S.-born citizens and 135 per 100,000 for undocumented immigrants. So, so much for that theory that all the illegals are dealing in drugs in great numbers. Another Trump fantasy shot all to hell by facts, something that nobody in the Trump world seems to be able to deal with.
Now, as to the veracity of the number of illegals version legals and such and how it was determined, our criminal justice system is a little different than many other states. We track more data. From the study that some of the above data was taken from:
As the study’s authors write, “To our knowledge, Texas is the only state that requires the determination and documentation of immigration status as part of its standard criminal justice records practice. …Simply put, no other data source in the United States could accomplish this task with the same degree of breadth, rigor, and detail.
If you have the intestinal fortitude to face facts, you may like this article
Crime statistics consistently show that native born Americans commit more crimes than migrants. But you wouldn’t know that from what politicians are saying.
www.kpbs.org
Many like to suggest J6 was unprecedented violence, well, unarmed female Republican Ashli Babbitt was shot dead, that officer would have been on a murder charge in the UK shooting a live round into a crowd, no police were killed however much the Democrats like to suggest were.
It WAS a frigging unprecedented attack on the seat of our government. To give you a little history lesson (again, which is factually based and not opinions) on how rarely that has occurred:
Over its 200‑year history, the nation’s legislative seat has withstood multiple episodes of violence.
www.history.com
As for "shooting a round into the crowd", guess what. That round hit where it was aimed, at a target crawling through an opening and surrounded by material that would have pretty much stopped a miss from passing through. In fact, I have to give kudos to that officer for his cool hand in being able to hit his target under that stress. Many officers honestly probably could not. They would spray & pray. He acquired the target, discharged the required number of rounds to stop the action and then ceased target engagement.
Tell me, what is your level of expertise on firearms, their use in the field of law enforcement, the process of target acquisition and the determination of shoot/don't shoot? How experienced are you with the ballistic penetration ability of various rounds against assorted material that may be encountered in law enforcement situations?
How many times have YOU been placed in that situation? I personally have numerous times, and out of all of them only had to discharge my firearm in one of them. And guess what, there were bystanders around the person I shot then also. In fact, the actions of one of them resulted in ricochet off his watch as his arm reached into my target area, resulting in the person having time to discharge his firearm and kill his common-law wife.
EVERY time an officer pulls that trigger there is a chance of injury to others. I've never known of any method of transporting a person that deadly force is authorized to be used against to a large (multi square mile) unoccupied area so that the shooting can happen without any danger to surrounding citizens.
For egregious lack of use of common sense, charges are filed and officers ARE prosecuted. Guess what, Babbitts shooting was investigated and it was determined that it (like mine) was within policy.
And speaking of Babbitt, she should have been WELL aware of what intrusion into a secure government facility could involve as a response by those charged with protecting it. Remember, she was an ex Air Force security officer, and they do get trained in when deadly force can be used in protection of things even as mundane as, not to mention more sensitive government property/persons.
Now, as to Babbitt herself, in 2015 she rammed another vehicle three times with an SUV and was pounding on the window of that SUV, challenging the driver to a fight because that lady had Babbitts husband she was cheating on him with her boyfriend. She also had a history of erratic behavior and multiple arrests. She also had a lengthy history of making violent threats. So it's not like she's the Virgin Mary here. She was shown (and confirmed afterwards by the history of her past behavior) to be acting in a manner that the officer found to endanger from violence the people he was there to protect. Exactly WHAT reasonable person would continue forcibly climbing through a broken window into the seat of Congress while a gun was being pointed at them and they were being told to stop, especially as I mentioned, having been trained in the use of deadly force for protection in the pursuit of her duties as a government security officer?
And no, no officers were directly killed.... but 140 officers reported injury (some resulting in serious injury) from the assaults of the MAGA cult members. I know from first hand experience that number was probably higher as many simply didn't report any injuries. There have been many a time I and other officers have been injured in pursuit of our duties and we didn't report it, mainly because of the additional paperwork that was involved and the fact it took you away from your duties frequently while you had to go in for medical assessment. You had at least one officer (Fanone) that had voted for Trump that came out against Trump's actions afterwards. There were several others in the same boat.
Then you had people like Christopher Worrell, 52, of Florida, who was found guilty in May of six felony counts, including assaulting officers with a deadly weapon, as well as one misdemeanor count.
Seems those weren't peaceful tourists there for a daily jaunt now doesn't it? Never mind that it was CLEARLY shown on TV that was going on and that Trump was sitting watching it as it happened (as has been documented by numerous of his staff).
I stress each time that I saw it and Trump's speech leading up to it, yet you keep on trying to justify and deflect blame from Trump. No, he's guilty of fomenting it that day and also in the months leading up to it as per a documentary I saw about it by a neutral party. Open your eyes! 
You can talk about anything you like and you can see the various other sciencey threads I've started recently. If you'd like to comment on them, you'd be very welcome. 
