Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign | Hacker News Reader

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

nbcphiladelphia.com

205 pointsbusymom0421 comments

Here's his campaign ad. https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1455899165230354448?s=20

South Jersey obviously isn't very happy with New Jersey's leadership.

Love it how basic and down to earth his ad is.

But he uses the same tricks as everyone else. I only heard a few statements, one that immediately caught in my filter: "seven out of every ten moves are leaving the state" -- which is a meaningless metric if left by itself like in the video, unless you know what is normal, and also how many are moving in?

70% as a majority of moves seems concerning even if the norm.

Moves can only be in, out, or within.

7 out of 10 out means 3 = #in + #within.

Maybe it is normal for most moves to be out of NJ, but who's to say that normal is good?

You got that from a campaign ad? Wow, you’re easily swayed.

Not speaking for them, but the ad doesn't say anything about the happiness of South Jersey constituents. So I wouldn't expect they got it from ad. I think the article a more likely source.

He's probably getting it from the fact that yesterday the people in South Jersey voted out the 16 year incumbent who led the State Senate.

The 16 year incumbent who was at constant arms with the Governor who was just re-elected. It’s almost as if the dem party wanted to see Sweeney lose so he would get out of Murphy’s way…

Maybe this will inspire more working-class people to run for political office.

I liked his premise. It's a good idea, appeal to the people who aren't voting.

It is an extremely difficult idea to put in practice: people who historically haven't voted, especially in local elections, are notoriously difficult to convince to vote. So even if you identify a situation where you can appeal strongly to the average non-voter, that is super hard to turn into a win.

This is the reason politicians get salaries.

The vast majority of elected offices in the United States are unpaid.

Do you have a citation for that? Interesting if true, however 100% of State and Federal legislators are paid.

I don't have a written source, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of elected offices in the United States are local/municipal, and many (most?) of those are unpaid. And if they're not unpaid, they usually only pay a few thousand a year, if that.

Serval states only pay a small amounts. New Hampshire is the smallest I’m aware of at $100/ year.

This is by design, it encourages only the wealthy to hold office.

Curious, I Googled a bit, but can't find a definitive source. It is true that most politicians are local. Here is an infographic that shows 96% are local:

https://poliengine.com/blog/how-many-politicians-are-there-i...

I am not sure that is correct.

Given many are at the municipal and school board level I suppose that’s true, but they are barely “politicians”. For example Palo Alto has professional management and then an unpaid city council (they take turns being mayor). There are no political parties.

How well does this work? It’s a mixed bag. The professional managers get things done but managed to build a little empire (lots of middle management) which is now hard to dislodge. The non-professional council members couldn’t keep up. Also there are waves of the real estate interest taking over the council for a while and screwing up priorities.

Compared to that, a few who were on the job full time might have been better.

weird: we have a very similar setup in my little corner of England and I have similar feelings. The "executive" professionals can run amok, awarding dubious contracts to friends and spending millions of taxpayer money in quixotic schemes, with little or no accountability; meanwhile, elected councillors are counting potholes. The electorate is so divided that there has been no clear majority for 5-6 years, which probably weakens political oversight even more. Coming from a more "roman-napoleonic" country, all this seems silly and wide-open to all sorts of corruption.

I don't think you know what you're talking about, as evidenced by your failure to follow up with citations.

In any case, the office he's running for IS paid. So what exactly is your point? That other elected offices are unpaid? Who cares?

One reason to pay them (not that it works very well) is to make them less susceptible to bribery. In some Third World countries, it's expected that government officials will supplement their income with bribes.

I don't think you know what you're talking about, as evidenced by your failure to follow up with citations

Fortunately, I'm not all that concerned about what some rando on HN thinks. As for the citation, what's the proper form for citing common knowledge, basic math, and high school civics classes?

A Republican just won an election in Seattle City Government for the first time in three decades. This election has seen some big shifts in the electorate, even in some deeply-Democratic areas.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/republica...

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.

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 housed.

Four years from now, we'll be exactly where we are today.

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.

So you want the government to house them at taxpayer cost!

Three squares, a roof, and jobs for all the police, judges, guards, and lawyers involved. Oh, and a criminal record to ensure that future employment will be even harder upon their eventual release. And another jail with at least 5,000 beds. Taxes gotta go somewhere, I guess...

Housed and punished for that vs housed and rewarded for that? I know which I’d pick.

Are you signing up to pay for that personally?

The thirst for punishment over improvement ultimately keeps the problem going. Any chance you'd prefer to break the cycle rather than continue it?

Are you suggesting that jail (aka expensive housing funded by the public) is the most effective solution to these crimes/behaviors? For example, do you think the population of people who defecate in public are going to be deterred due to the threat of imprisonment?

Either deterred or jailed, either way you end up with less shit on the street.

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.

That's up to the police to decide. If they don't like a law, they don't enforce it.

The police don't sentence people to jail.

No, but they do pick who they want to pull over, and for what reason.

That's their job?

They de facto do. A police officer can arrest you for basically any reason and send you to jail. How long that jail stint lasts depends on what happens after you are arraigned, but you can easily spend a few days in a county jail before the judge shows up after the 3 day weekend to decide if what you were arrested for was legit.

Selective enforcement is not a good outcome. Any police officer who doesn't enforce a law because they don't like it should be fired.

Not saying it's a good outcome, but in my lifetime, that's what I've learned to expect. If the chief doesn't like the law either, who is going to fire the officer?

You should watch last weekend's episode of Last Week Tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liptMbjF3EE

No thank you. He is the tucker carlson of the left. I try to stay away from talking heads that remove all nuance from the debate.

> He is the tucker carlson of the left

That is quite an interesting claim. Do you mean because they are leading voices on their supposed political side, or they are equivalent in factual accuracy, or something else?

My favorite factoid about Tucker Carson, the leading voice of news analysis in the USA:

> Now comes the claim that you can't expect to literally believe the words that come out of Carlson's mouth. And that assertion is not coming from Carlson's critics. It's being made by a federal judge in the Southern District of New York and by Fox News's own lawyers in defending Carlson against accusations of slander. It worked, by the way. [0]

I am up to this point unaware of anything clearly nonfactual presented by Oliver. If anything from Oliver exists along the lines of Carlson's extraordinary list of lies [1] I would genuinely be interested to learn about it.

I wrote a lot there, but my main question is, how exactly do you see Carlson and Oliver as equivalent?

[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-...

[1] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?speaker=tucker-c...

I’d be interested in you responding to my sibling comment. How are you possibly equating Tucker Carlson and Oliver.

I mean, alright, you do you, but the common misconception you're echoing here he very specifically refuted with data and cited sources. One point in particular, it costs a city around $30k/yr per homeless person in emergency medical care and jail facilities, but only ~$10k/yr to give them the proper support and a place to live.

And what happens when they refuse that support? Or turn it into a drug den? I've lived in SF, and in Seattle for a combined 22 years. I've seen what the ravaging horde of homeless due to the cities there. They turn away housing, and they won't go to shelters. Not because the shelters are degrading, but because they won't let them do drugs there.

These people are mentally insane, and unfit for society.

Would giving them housing stop them from raping? or defecating inside cars they broke into?

It's time to stop pandering to the 0.1% and focus on the 99.9% of us that do participate in society.

That would probably cost taxpayers more (both in the short and long term) than just housing them and getting them mental health services.

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) is to decriminalize and make drugs more available.

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.

I recently learned that drugs have become more dangerous and more damaging not due to customer demand, but because of the war on drugs. You need to transport a lot less fentanyl than cocaine for the same effect strength. Meth also had changed to work without ingredients we have banned. This has made meth much more damaging. I wonder what things would look like if we just took the Portugal route.

https://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-t...

Coincidently, I just listened to this. (Perhaps we saw the same recommendation on HN.) 100% recommend, and the whole podcast approach at econtalk.org is very interesting. Economics plus life-of-the-mind.

Hah, I posted this a about a week ago as well. I'm most delighted about anyone listening to this. It very much changed how I view the problem of homelessness in the US. Also the angle of this being caused by essentially messing with the market is fascinating to me.

Great. In the meantime I have also heard the following which addresses US homelessness in a somewhat internationally-informed way: Joe Rogan episode #1719 with M. Shellenberger. He does not use the term, but Shellenberger suggests that merely supplying housing, without adjusting other incentives and requirements, could almost be called a consumerist approach: pay the money for a private room for someone and it will magically work.

Also 100% on the Quinones on Econtalk. Another interesting one for an alternative view to the war-on-drugs/decriminalization dichotomy is CSPI: What's Wrong with the West Coast? with Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger is an activist and author. He joins the podcast to talk about his book San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. He discusses debates around homelessness in San Francisco, the ideology driving the homelessness advocacy community, how the West coast differs from the rest of the world in its treatment of mental illness and addiction, and whether there is hope of political change.

https://audioboom.com/posts/7962954-what-s-wrong-with-the-we...

Thanks for the recommendation! Already learned interesting new things like that building of shelters is being blocked "because we need to build real housing".

Glad to share the discovery. There probably needs to be a “HN Podcasts” similar to the Book site.

https://hackernewsbooks.com/

https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-po...

>You say that like the war on drugs is the solution?

I'm not saying that at all, that's you putting words in my mouth.

>Do you think that any of these people don't use drugs because it's a crime? It's just making their life worse.

Ultimately became an irrelevant point of view for my friend, who, fearing for her safety, moved away from Seattle.

Progressives lost a "safe" city council seat (and nearly another) and the mayor. It wasn't a normal election.

The mayor, Jenny Durkan was not progressive, either in platform, or in what she did (which was mostly sit around on the sidelines) over the past four years.

So, not much changed with the mayor's office.

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.

Biden is not particularly rich. Yet he ran against two billionaires and defeated them. Nor is he far left. Bernie Sanders, Elizbeth Warren and Mike Gravel were all substantially more left leaning.

because the other candidate was seen as an extreme left-winger

That’s been a selling point in Seattle for a long time.

Apparently she was just a bridge too far with tweets like these:

https://www.twitter.com/ntkallday/status/1287215672372625410

https://www.twitter.com/ntkallday/status/1282015687603417089...

Or deleted tweets like “I have not taken any of this anti bias training but i for sure hate this country”

Keep in mind, 40% of votes went to this candidate.

Her campaign manager’s tweets were even worse, going so far as wishing death on (her words) “kkkops.”

> YAY! Thank you to the heroes that set the Children's Jail on fire.

> This is a nice start. Lookin good Kenosha. (entire car lots burnt to the ground)

And she was running to be the Attorney?

The progressive take at the moment is that law and order is evil, better to have cities like SF where criminal thugs punch sweet old asian women in the street and rob them.

She got 41% of the vote https://projects.seattletimes.com/2021/election-results/#Key...

A "Republican" who has previous run as a Democrat and has voted for Democrats in all recent presidential elections. This says less about any shift in the electorate than it does about the extremism of the Seattle left.

right, a shift in the electorate.

I agree that Seattle is a little bonkers, but I disagree that this isn’t a larger shift.

NJ and Virginia governorships were both supposed to be easy wins for incumbent Democrats. So far, one has lost and one is too close to call.

For those unaware, Murphy (D, incumbent) was ~20% up back in July.

It's shocking its even close.

Phil Murphy ran for governor of NJ essentially on the promise of legal recreational weed. He did so beating out the NJ Democratic Machine, lead by the Norcross family.

Knowing that weed was Murphy's #1 campaign promise, the NJ Democrat machine did everything they could to bring it to a halt. That was lead by Senate president Steve Sweeney. Eventually weed was legalized via referendum, but they're still slow walking dispensaries. And I'm guessing weed was not the only thing they slow walked him on.

As a result, Murphy's election was painfully close, and Sweeney lost to this guy who paid $153 for his campaign.

No incumbent governor of Virginia can run for the office, for terms may not be consecutive. In fact, few who have been elected governor of Virginia have ever run again. There were questions raised about the legality of McAuliffe's running.

And I'm not sure that anyone has ever been terribly inspired by Terry McAuliffe.

You ever go running with an energetic medium-large dog? Sometimes they are just so excited they want to sprint away, much faster than you can possibly bring yourself to go. It's not that you wouldn't love to go that fast, you just can't, and you have to pull the younger, more dependent dog back to a tolerable pace for you. You're still running, just at a pace that doesn't cause injury. You're also making sure that the dog doesn't get off the leash and cause any harm or get unintentionally harmed.

I think you're underselling the accomplishment. Most people tend to vote party lines regardless of how bad their candidate is. I've seen it personally with family members and friends, even if they are under investigation for corruption. Usually in deep red/blue states the other party is normally very moderate.

For some reason this reminds me of John Ashcroft, among other things, the only US senator to ever lose an election to a dead opponent.

This is probably reflective of the two parties' lock on the election mechanics and the appeal of a candidate at an alternative end of an Overton Window.

https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow

Reminiscent of 1991 Edwards vs Duke, "Vote for the Crook, It's Important" LA governor election (without casting either Seattle party as the crook or the wizard).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Louisiana_gubernatorial_e...

my glass-almost-half-full take on this is that a significant chunk of the electorate was willing to vote for the candidate that literally supports burning down jails, which is astonishing no matter how you look at it

That kinds of begs the question what the glass is half full of.

I agree it's astonishing no matter what side of the isle you come at it from.

This is bad news. If too many truck drivers run for public office, the supply chain problems are only going to get worse.

Ha! I literally LOL'ed this. Well played.

Where / how can similar situations be identified? That is, consistemtly low turn out rate in an area where the incumbent isn't that highly rated? With such info, a dare I say agile "start up" party could make 2022 very interesting.

Interesting idea.

This is impressive, but what is more impressive to me, and this is a non-partisan statement, is how people are not afraid of being blocked and ostracized by their partisan friends and just pick the opposition party to run for anyway.

There’s a reason that ballots are supposed to be cast behind a curtain.

I know this is more charged in the US, but you can still vote for whoever you like and just not tell people you don't want to tell about it.

I'm referring to the people running. This guy spent $150 on Dunkin donuts and put himself out there, home address and everything.

He's got a "don't tread on me" flag flying in his front yard. I don't think any of his acquaintances were unsure of his political beliefs.

In our current climate, being blocked and ostracized has lost all meaning. Look at the Lt. Governor race in Virginia last night. Black woman, ex-marine, homeless shelter operator ran as GOP and won. Twitter mob and media blames it on "racism" as usual.

> "When you overuse an accusation and everyone can see it's just a cynical and self-serving weapon of character assassination rather than an actual conviction, you trivialize it and drain it of its potency for when it's merited, so that nobody cares any longer when it's hurled." - Glenn Greenwald

Its nice to see it play out. It wasn't clear what the outcome of this idea would be, in LA and NYC (parts of the country I frequent) it is very common to see people with very prideful exclusionary rhetoric in favor of left goals. In person, on twitter, directly on their profile on dating apps, at comedy clubs vilifying moderates and independents in their routines.

So it is interesting to see these election results reported as a consequence from elected officials attempting to actually go further left.

Regarding your observation about the Lt. Gov, it is nice to see more independent and random amalgamations of American ideals within black American candidates, as people have overly discounted the possibility of any minority objectively prioritizing a political goal above physical attributes they were born with, which is an extremely discriminatory assumption that people are still comfortable making.

Does anybody know how he ran his campaign/how campaigns are run in general? I genuinely do not know how people "campaign". Do you just hire people to walk around and knock on doors, Jehovah's Witness style?

There's probably more "official" ways, but you're allowed to do whatever you want to get people's attention, within election laws.

I met a guy disc golfing once who got like, 10% of the vote for a state district senate seat just by getting his name on the ballot. Then he went and shook a bunch of hands and talked to people _at_ the election place to get people to vote for him (against the election laws xD) though people did.

You just need to be known. Tape poorly made signs everywhere, shake hands, go on local TV. A local judge got elected who was mostly unknown save for a very popular local Christian television channel and the news did a story on her cause she just never showed up to serve and they couldn't boot her out.

Good. Too many politicians run unopposed and take reëlection for granted. This how you get more responsive governance.

Yes. But why would that be? Because the two main parties are more of cartel? And less like true competition?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

Just going to share one of the Truck Driver more choice Twitter posts to show you what he’s about:

Mohammed was a pedophile! Islam is a false religion! Only fools follow muslim teachings! It is a cult of hate!

https://mobile.twitter.com/edwarddurr1/status/11685227583320...

Meanwhile in Texas, each State Senate District has 940,178 people. 70,000 people in a state senate district just seems more workable.

With 29 million people, Texas has more inhabitants than the entire Australia, which is divided into several states.

In theory it's possible for TX to split into 5 states.

https://www.honestaustin.com/texapedia/texas-split-divide-in...

In theory, it’s possible for Texas to split into any number of States. I wouldn’t put money on it.

> In theory, it’s possible for Texas to split into any number of States.

Such a theory (this really refers to the Texas-specific 5 state theory upthread; your “any number” theory, which presumably is the same theory that applies to any State, is valid, but not unilateral like the 5-state theory) exists, but it requires starting with a dubious interpretation of the act annexing Texas, and then flatly ignoring the act admitting Texas.

I was surprised to learn that independent Texas actually maintained a diplomatic mission in London. The building still exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Legation

Given that the Republic of Texas had worldwide diplomatic recognition during its decade of existence, it would have been strange had the nation had not had diplomats stationed in London. It'd be like a new country today not sending an ambassador to Washington (while not being actively hostile to the US, and vice versa).

What I’m getting at is that it’s one of those things that is unlikely to ever be tested and likely won’t come up because Texans aren’t chomping at the bit to split their State up. Greater Idaho is more likely and that would require three State legislatures and an Act of Congress to make happen.

The two US senators for South Dakota got fewer than 300,000 votes each and both won by a mile. Curtis Sliwa got more votes than either of them while getting trounced in the NYC mayoral election.

The Texas legislature also has a component with finer grained population, the Texas House.

The Texas House has 150 House Districts, based on the 2010 Census. Each House District has a population of around 167,637 people.

https://www.txdot.gov/inside-txdot/division/transportation-p...

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 prison. You need to be extremely careful when driving through that state so you don't forget if you have some in the car.

New Jersey has some of the absolute worst gun laws in the country.

New Jersey is an example of the 30 day delay and often those 30 days turn into 7-8 months. I know several people there who went through this last year when the riots were happening and they wanted to purchase a firearm for the first time only to realize how strict the laws were. Ironic enough, they had themselves voted in these laws which were now causing them the problems. This changed the minds of at least 10 friends of mine on gun control.

Tim Pool, popular YouTuber went from anti-2A to SUPER-PRO 2A last year and he's from New Jersey and went through this process. Here's forums of people complaining about this. You can find several similar examples:

https://www.njgunforums.com/forum/index.php?/topic/97756-pis...

https://bearingarms.com/staff-ba/2021/03/26/new-jersey-gun-p...

Most of the time the voters are given no choice or a couple bad choices. For example, I liked Bernie for his ambition to reform healthcare, but of course that was bundled with anti 2A rhetoric.

It would be interesting if candidates had to declare their intents in a formal way, just like a phone app has to formally request access to mic and cam, and if they are elected, they'd have to stay within the bounds they'd requested. So a guy who wanted to reform healthcare wouldn't be able to change his mind later and start reforming education.

New Jersey has some of the best gun laws in the country.

Yeah it’s a real hoplophobe’s dream.

Gun control is over in Virginia at least. The Lt. Governor's election campaign was her at a gun range. And Governor Youngkin is also pro-2A.

When 25.8% of the shootings are coming from Chicago which has just 0.8% population, maybe it's time to focus on gangs instead of making life miserable for legal gun owners.

Democrats still control the senate in virginia so I'm not sure gun control is over.

Biased because I live in Chicago, but it's legitimately impossible to stop gangs as long as it's possible to get a gun. As soon as someone is arrested there are 5 kids ready to take their place. The only solutions to gun violence here are end poverty or stop guns from out of state from entering the city.

> stop guns from out of state from entering the city

Stop letting them use gun control to ignore the underlying issues in the community.

ME: Chicago has strict gun control but high gun violence.

Gun Control: They get guns from states with loose gun control.

ME: But those states don't have the same gun violence

Gun Control: Places in Chicago are poor & neglected so there's more violence.

ME: BINGO, it's a socioeconomic issue not a gun issue!

Last I checked on July 13, Chicago has 25.8% of shootings despite having 0.8% of the population.

Mexico has extremely restrictive laws regarding gun possession. There is only one gun store in the entire country, and it takes months of paperwork to have a chance at purchasing one legally.

Similar in India. Making guns illegal doesn't stop any of that. In India, underground criminals make the guns out of everyday stuff. And now a days, 3D printing had made this process even easier.

> Stop letting them use gun control to ignore the underlying issues in the community.

I'm glad we agree that poverty is the root cause of gun violence, but realizing that does nothing to stop gun violence. Poverty isn't something that can be solved with the snap of a finger, although I certainly think we are on the right track. What do you think we should do to stop gun violence in the mean time? Nothing is a valid answer, but I don't think it's acceptable to a majority of people in this country.

The problem isn't simply about poverty/money or racism or past inequities, it's about corruption, gangs, fatherlessness, teacher unions and lack of school choice.

Chicago has been fully one party ruled since 1931. Baltimore since 1963, Detroit since 1962 etc and so on. Why has none of the lives improved in these cities and they keep having gang problems?

If Chicago hasn't been able to fix anything for almost a century, maybe it's time to either vote for another party or start a new party and vote for them.

Related, 13 Baltimore City High Schools, Zero Students Proficient in Math. Baltimore is 2nd in per pupil spending. This is not because the schools dont get enough money. In fact its just about as far away from that as you can get. If despite getting the 2nd more funded, the students still can't do high school math, someone needs to look at what's going on in these schools.

https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/7bvreb/13_baltimore_c...

https://archive.ph/VfciU

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-05-21/news/bs-md-ci-ce...

https://archive.ph/cqIZd

> Why has none of the lives improved in these cities and they keep having gang problems?

Because the people are still poor?

> lack of school choice.

Most of the poor kids here are in charter schools.

> Fatherlessness

Agreed this is a major problem, it's mostly caused by poverty.

> corruption

Absolutely agree this is a huge problem. We tried to solve it by electing an outsider mayor, everyone hates her because she can't get anything done due to obstruction from corrupt politicians. Even if we ended corruption tomorrow, that would only move the end of poverty from many decades away to a few less decades away, not really a solution to gun violence.

> gangs

We arrested all the gang leaders. Now the gangs are just 10 dudes who went to elementary school together. Without leadership there is no one to stop them from shooting each other, it has made things quite a bit worse imo. As I said it isn't possible to just end gangs, there are always new people to fill the power vacuum.

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 thinking. Dems run on "taking away AR-15" but the stats show that isn't going to achieve anything.

In 2008, there were 800k-3 million defensive uses of guns.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29101364

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.

> Hard to say since research into gun violence is banned by the government.

It's not banned. The government isn't going to fund it, but you've jumped the shark if you think that means it is banned.

And part of the reason it's not being funded is that this is political in nature. How do you look at the hundreds of thousands of assaults that were thwarted with guns used in self-defense? Guns are primarily used for self-defense. How do you measure the lives saved? And when an attacker is shot and killed, is that a life saved or a life lost? This is a political debate not a scientific debate. Once you accept that the rapist shot to death and the person who commits suicide as being the same as some random person shot to death, then you've already politicized the work.

It's also far outside the purview of the CDC, which is what this "banned" canard is about - the left wanted the CDC to treat "gun violence" as a thing -- like "fist violence" -- or "knife violence" -- why do they always want to classify disagreement as a "disease"? Everything is a "safety" or "health" issue with them, amenable to handing our public policies over to some bureaucrat. Fortunately there was sufficient pushback to block funding of that. That is what your outrage is about.

But don't worry, there is a push to classify racism as a disease and have the CDC lab coats study it, so you will get some politicized "public health" research to tide you over.

In the meantime, you are welcome to donate to one of the many think-tanks that do these studies on guns, violence, and criminality - of all political persuasions. There are lots of studies even without bringing the public health bureaucracies into the mix.

> It's also far outside the purview of the CDC

What? no it isn't. CDC report on a wide range of harm. It's baffling to think the CDC can be funded to research on road traffic deaths but not gun deaths. Or, to use your examples, that they could be funded to research knife deaths but not gun deaths.

> Hard to say since research into gun violence is banned by the government.

That's plain false.

The reason they stopped studying because it didn't fit the narrative.

In 2008, there were 800k-3 million defensive uses of guns:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29101364

The bit you missed out from that link was:

   Total firearms: 10,265

I stated "rifle" not all guns. Because saying we need to take away all guns is pie in the sky thinking. Dems run on "taking away AR-15" but the stats show that isn't going to achieve anything.

In 2008, there were 800k-3 million defensive uses of guns.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29101364

No, here's what the link you give actually says:

> Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.

Please don't copy-paste comments on HN. It lowers the signal/noise ratio. If you want to refer to what you said elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29101591), that's fine, but please use a link and explain why it's relevant.

>> According to the FBI homicide stats for US, 297 people were murdered by a rifle in 2018 in the US.

Holy misleading data excerpts batman...

there were 10k homicides by gun, but you choose 1 type of gun and not the most common.

2014 - 2018 knives 1545 -> 1515 Blunt objects 431->443 Hands, feet 668->672 Guns 7803->10265

I stated "rifle" not all guns. Because saying we need to take away all guns is pie in the sky thinking. Dems run on "taking away AR-15" but the stats show that isn't going to achieve anything.

In 2008, there were 800k-3 million defensive uses of guns.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29101364

> Nothing drives more people to crime than feeling like they are in a hopeless situation.

Couldn't agree more, which is why eliminating poverty was the first solution I said. We're doing that. Unfortunately it takes decades to work because of the shit family dynamics that exist. Should we just let gun violence run rampant until then?

Are you seriously suggesting we compare the deaths (you can include injuries if you like) from guns in the US with those caused by knives in the UK? Do you understand how this comparison is going to come out?

They don’t understand it and always present false equivalences as fact.

I still cannot really fathom this logic. Why would you not want to address WHY guns are used?

I do. I'm working hard to end poverty. It takes a long time. Many people will die before the situations that cause gun violence are solved.

What was the homicide rate in the depths of the Great Depression? What is the current homicide rate of rural rust-belt America, with lower per capita incomes than poor urban areas?

Poverty isn't the cause. Sorry you've been wasting your time.

When 15% of world gun deaths are coming from the USA which has just 4.25% of the world population, perhaps it's time to focus on national level issues instead of using excuses.

> gun deaths

That's a meaningless stat. The point of my Chicago stat is that vast majority of the shootings are coming from gang members. A gang member shooting another gang member isn't a relevant stat. And shootings in self defence is one of the purposes of owning a gun (though not what the 2A is only for).

That's like saying my daughter would be safer to live in my home country India where she may not get shot but she may get raped late at night. Or like saying Afghanistan is safer somehow?

Estimated 800,000 to 2.45 million defensive uses of firearms per year in 1993 national survey.

https://www.cga.ct.gov/PS94/rpt/olr/htm/94-R-0798.htm

Another 2008 study by National Academy of Sciences showed 500,000 to more than 3 million "Defensive Use of Guns". Simply having the gun on your or brandishing it prevented crimes from happening. This was in 2008. That numbers is even higher now.

Source:

https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3

Page 15 of the study talks about the defensive use part. You can download the PDF by using the "guest" option and entering any random email (doesn't have to be real). Another related source:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2018/04/30/that-time-...

> "Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008."

> "In 1996, 1997, and 1998, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted large-scale surveys asking about defensive gun use (DGU) in four to six states. Analysis of the raw data allows the estimation of the prevalence of DGU for those areas. Estimates based on CDC’s surveys confirm estimates for the same sets of states based on data from the 1993 National Self-Defense Survey (Kleck and Gertz 1995). Extrapolated to the U.S. as a whole CDC’s survey data imply that defensive uses of guns by crime victims are far more common than offensive uses by criminals. CDC has never reported these results."

> "One CDC official in the 1990s openly told the Washington Post that his goal was to create a public perception of gun ownership as something “dirty, deadly — and banned.” Given that history, I can’t dismiss Kleck’s critique."

How do you propose these people - wives/daughters/elderly/handicapped/living close to cartels/over 800K-3 million defensive uses should defend themselves?

Also, U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households, something which is well known for kids to grow up into criminals:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/12/u-s-childre...

Assuming those stats are both correct, it seems like an unusually high portion of global gun deaths per capita still come from Chicago, so maybe start at the smaller level.

Chicago ain’t in Virginia.

Gun control has never been a big thing in VA. Even Democrats are not pushing very hard for it.

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.

If that's the case, it's still completely dumb. If you shoot someone in self defense with ball ammo it's definitely going to over penetrate and keep going possibly hitting anyone or anything behind the threat.

And what happens if you are driving from the range and experience a flat tire, have to use the restroom, an emergency where you need to go somewhere else. Bad laws.

Hollow points are more destructive and dangerous to the person who was shot. They cause so much internal damage that the person will not survive a wound that may have been survivable otherwise. They are banned by the Geneva convention.

Why do police use them then?

Because they are less likely to also shoot the person behind the person you shot.

I'd like a source on that final sentence if you have it.

I get the arguments for and against them, but I generally favor leaving those decisions up to the people involved.

Why don’t you Google it? Easy to find.

>It is a common misapprehension that hollow-point ammunition is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, as the prohibition significantly predates those conventions.

There ya go. Easy to find.

> 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.

That makes no sense and if that's the case, it's definitely unconstitutional.

Also, who shoots hollow points at the range? They're super expensive.

Random guess; Carve-out intended for off duty LEOs?

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

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.

New Jersey (along with NY, CA) has the most unconstitutional gun control laws in America.

If I have a daughter who's returning home late at night from University, I would want her to be armed for her own protection. Things like "taxation" are not the most important thing to her.

It would be better to live in the kind of country where girls can walk home at night safely without guns?

I am originally from India.

Hmm. Doesn't India have severe gun laws? Why aren't women safer in India yet?

Well, India's population is a multiple of that of the US.

However, many areas include Delhi - the rate of violence against women is just unbelievable!

If such a city had gun laws like Texas, you might see the crime rate come down drastically.

In India, the rich can afford guns. That is the sad truth.

India has extreme gun control laws unfortunately. If you are rich or politically connected, you can own guns or have bodyguards in India. Most people don't have that luxury there. Going through the process and it costs more than the average Indian's annual salary. Carrying guns in public places in most of India is prohibited.

At least in the US, you can afford one fairly easily as long as your background check passes.

Yup, now OP just has the choice to make...completely rewrite American society, or go down to the gun store and buy a gun.

It would be better to live in the kind of country where girls can walk home at night safely. Whether that's with or without guns doesn't really matter.

When my daughter(s) returned home late at night (or perhaps better described as early in the morning) in Berlin, they didn't need guns, and the taxes helped pay for a transportation system that meant they didn't need to drive either.

Well the difference between your daughters and my daughters is that they're reliant on a giant system and the good will of others and mine are reliant on themselves. When they walk home late at night they don't need to worry either, because they have guns.

the giant system is more powerful and has been around much longer than the guns. and when you say "they're reliant", you make it sound as if somehow the citizens of berlin get offered the chance make a daily choice to be nice, when in reality, it's baked in at a much deeper level. there are hardly any crazy people in berlin (in the sense of wanting or needing to assault people). your daughters live in the middle of a giant system too, but instead of one that puts a priority on the kinds of things that berlin does, its a giant system that "requires" them to have guns. not only that, but they still have to worry: you don't get to pull out a gun in a dangerous situation without adding to the potential danger.

btw, i live in new mexico now, and my daughters are both grown women who live in chicago and philadelphia, and still do not carry guns.

It doesn't require them to have guns. There are wild animals outside too, maybe we can make a system where that doesn't exist.

Berlin sounds real nice. You never need to think about protecting yourself when things are going great. It may feel baked in at a deeper level, but don't forget, Berlin has at one time relatively recently been a very terrible place to live, especially for those that didn't have guns.

The entire idea of having a gun is to make a dangerous situation more dangerous, it creates symmetry, an aggressor is now equal to his or her victim.

New mexico is pretty nice too. Did you know that anyone who wants to can openly carry any gun they want in new mexico?

Your daughters ARE worrying. And the proof is that they have guns.

That's a ridiculously empty self supporting meaningless assertion, care to elaborate?

Statistically, gun owners are far more likely to be injured by their own weapons than the weapons of others, and the sheer availability of firearms forces law enforcement officers to escalate situations far more quickly than they otherwise would. It follows that people who are walking around with guns live in fear of confrontation with other people who have guns.

I have had five personal relationships with people who have died due to firearms. They are as follows:

1. My cousin, who killed himself while hunting ducks

2. My childhood friend, who killed himself while cleaning a rifle

3. My childhood friend, who was killed by cops after falling asleep at a railroad crossing and dropped his phone in the car when the police approached

4. My uncle, who committed suicide

5. Another childhood friend, who was drunk and disorderly and shot to death by cops while unarmed in the front yard of his house

On the flip side, I don't personally know a single human being whose life was either saved or made better by possessing or being around someone who possessed a firearm.

Statistically, you're an extreme outlier if you know 5 people who died of gunshot wounds.

Of those 5 though, two were killed by cops. Can I draw from the fact that you included those that you don't want police to have firearms either?

When you say "killed himself" for 1 and 2, do you mean deliberately?

Again though, you're an extreme outlier. And even more so that you don't know personally a single individual who even once was saved by proximity to a firearm, such as for example saved from domestic violence by the arrival of armed police. I live around guns and people with guns, there are literally hundreds of guns around me within a quarter mile radius right now, I only have three gun deaths of anyone I have ever known, one was a suicide, one was an old lady who defended her orphanage from an armed intruder, and another was a man shot by his ex girlfriend while he attempted to assault her. The last two of course are examples of lives saved or made better by possessing a firearm.

Then there are the other reasons to have them besides personal protection. Particularly there's the ethereal "deterrent to tyranny" you hear cited, but practically speaking there's also the ability to procure meat without a massive supply chain and the ability to defend against wildlife in areas where that is a tangible threat.

That's irrational. She's probably 100X more likely to be hit by a car than be a victim of crime. And more likely to be victimized by someone she knows than random street crime. Not to mention the risk of serious illness or injury via accidents. A reflective vest and health insurance will do far more for her safety than a gun. Not to mention, no one is really saying that personal weapons will be ever be gone. She can protect herself with pepper spray. Or really she can kill whoever she wants with a small caliber revolver and we can still ban military-style weapons (or we could if voters were rational).

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.

Show me someone who opposes single-payer healthcare, unions, affordable college costs but also believes that the second amendment did not and does not constitute an unfettered right to do more or less anything with guns. I'll wait. Until the right stops viewing the 2nd amendment as the benchmark issue, progressives will continue to see their position on it as just another part of their uniform opposition to a more modern society.

Then they can continue to lose the opportunity to do real, valuable reform by throwing a fit over a wedge issue.

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

Well I'm right here, but I don't know how to run for office and I probably would get crucified for entirely unrelated opinions (which I would be willing to change if given adequate reason). Probably a lot of people like me (and I assume you?) out there. We just aren't on the ballot, even if sometimes we might be entirely qualified.

Well that's exactly my point. People like you who think gun rights supercede everything else. It's ludicrous. Almost nobody needs a gun. Most other wealthy democracies have universal healthcare and near total bans on private gun ownership and they're doing way better than America. Proof is in the pudding.

But even so, your opinion is clearly colored by propaganda. Gun control isn't a popular topic on the left. The second amendment remains inviolable and has greatly expanded in the last twenty years. "They're coming to take our guns" is a cry of right wing media because they know it will scare people into voting irrationally.

> People like you who think gun rights supercede everything else. It's ludicrous. Almost nobody needs a gun.

> But even so, your opinion is clearly colored by propaganda.

> "They're coming to take our guns" is a cry of right wing media because they know it will scare people into voting irrationally.

Generally speaking, this is a poor way to convince someone. Comments like this are likely to embolden the parent's views. I say this as someone who holds neutral views on the matter.

Consider for a moment you have actually proved his point.

I honestly have no idea what would convince someone who is so bent on being irrational. But one thing I find does get people riled a bit is convincing them they've been tricked. And a lot of gun rights people definitely have been tricked.

Yes, it's weird that infringement of the fundamental right to self-defense is taken more seriously than things that are not fundamental rights.

Weirdest thing I've ever seen. Those wacky Americans and their crazy belief in liberty, or like, not wanting to be a victim of democide.

Say what you want about Hitler and his whole disarming-the-Jews thing, but healthcare for everyone else was pretty top-notch.

And if you ever feel sad for all the people murdered by Stalin after being disarmed, just remember how good the USSR mathematics program was.

Yeah. But replace your sarcasm with sincerity. Proof is in the pudding. Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Australia and many others have long ended the right to gun ownership and it has not decreased their freedom at all. The second amendment was a direct descendant of British Common Law and Britain severely curtailed personal gun ownership over the course of the 20th century and managed to not only remain a vibrant democracy, but have even marginalized their monarchy through popular sentiment without shooting anyone. They even survived a wave of terrorism without. The reach of the second amendment goes far beyond what is needed for personal defense and, in fact, was most certainly not intended for personal defense but rather defense of the nation. We could shrink gun ownership laws by 90% and not prevent people from defending themselves. But, really, we can't because the second amendment says Congress, states and cities are not allowed to.

Have you not paid attention to anything at all going on in Australia right now?

New York and specifically, New York City has the same issue. Year long application approvals with concealed carry permits granted at the discretion of the NYPD. There were supreme court arguments about this very issue today.

"turning screws"??? He's (presumably) going to be a legislator. One of many. He's not an executive, let alone a dictator.

As a legislator, he'll have a very good reason to get a concealed carry permit...

If that's what you meant by "turning screws" then yeah, you're right.

I thought you meant changing the whole system, which is well beyond the powers of one legislator.

2014: Single Mom Who Admitted to Bringing Legal Gun into NJ Now Facing 11+ Years in Prison

https://reason.com/2014/08/11/single-mom-who-admitted-to-bri...

Does USA has laws about candidates publishing their spending?

It looks like USA does not has laws to force candidates about his political party. I couldn't identify it from the candidate propaganda.

The truck driver is running as a Republican. That's a political part in the US (elsewhere it just means someone opposed to monarchy).

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?

My gut take is that the removal of the SALT deduction had a huge impact in NJ due to the very high property taxes

I doubt the vast majority of people (probably less than 10%) in NJ are paid enough to be affected by SALT since standard deduction went up so much. Property plus state income tax liabilities would have to be more than $12.5k/$25k single/married for people to have been affected.

I would bet on school closings and the trend of higher taxes/less government services, but the latter is unavoidable due to the outlier amounts of debt NJ has.

>According to recent reporting, if we reinstated the SALT deduction, nearly a third of New Jersey residents — almost three million people — would get tax relief. As many as 80% of them have incomes of $216,000 or less. Hardly the 1%.

https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/2021/05/17/salt-de...

NJ has very high property tax rates and high home values

The writer used the word “average”, but it would be clearer if they used median, or quintiles or deciles. I could not find a source for the report they claim to be saying 3 million people in NJ would benefit.

NJ income tax is ~4%, and average property taxes are not that high:

https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/03/njs-average-property-tax...

It would be nice to find statistics by percentile, but I would find it hard to believe that many single households are living in houses paying $8k+ property tax, and married households are paying $16k in property tax.

I use $8k and $16k because that would mean the remaining $4k and $8k would be for income tax for a person earning $100k/year (78th percentile) or a couple earning $200k per year (83rd percentile).

https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-state-calculator/

Edit: the best way to figure out if the SALT caps hurt or not is to see if the amount of people itemizing on federal returns increased or not. I cannot find any NJ specific statistics, but IRS says only 11% of tax filers itemized in 2019.

Predicament? A regular Joe beat a career politician for local representative. In what world is that a predicament?

Or are you so completely partisan that having an R next to his name makes him obviously the wrong choice, even though he was liberal enough to be palatable to New Jersey voters (not exactly a paragon of conservatism)?

There is an interesting story about Madigan in Chicago. Ran the Illinois machine. Corrupt as all hell. A college student decided to run against him and collected enough signatures to get on the ballot. Madigan typically ran unopposed. Well come to find about, of the 500 people who signed the petition to get this kid on the ballot, 1200 rescinded their support.

You do the math. These people aren't loved. They just know how to work the system to keep the outsiders out. The article says in a district of 150k, the NJ Senate President never received more than 30k votes. 20% of the population was dictating policy. Its no surprise that, when given the choice, people will vote their preference.

People where I live get a ballot and a book in the mail weeks before the election with details for all the candidates and questions, and all you have to do is drop it in the outgoing mail. Takes no more than 30min of your time, maybe 1 hour if you are a slow reader. And yet, less than 20% voter participation.

It is ironic that turnout for national elections, where their vote is moot is much higher. But for school boards, county positions, and city positions that actually have an effect on day to day life and expenses, people do not care as much.

WA? That's how it was in Vancouver when I lived there. Best system I've experience so far. Also felt the government was very fair and in line with the community.

Yes. OR is the same.

I'm in WA now, came from MN. It infuriates me thinking about voting in-person: my wife and I used to go to our city hall, wait in line maybe a half hour to 45 minutes. We'd snake our way through the line, get our IDs checked, fill out these forms just so, and if you get a technicality wrong, you'd have to work with someone to fix it. Yadda yadda, finally you'd have time in a booth to cast your vote.

But now in WA, my wife and I typically make our morning coffee, sit out on the patio, read through the voter guide to understand what the arguments for and against a particular ballot initiative are and the statements given by individuals. We vote together, sign our ballot, seal it up, then we drive three blocks to a local drop site (only because I prefer doing that versus putting it in my mailbox).

It's super easy to participate in the system here, and in my jaded perspective, that's exactly why certain people and organizations hate it so much.

The secret ballot is normally considered a cornerstone of democracy. Mail in voting completely destroys that. In my jaded perspective, that’s exactly why certain people and organizations love it so much.

I think you can have a secret ballot with mail in too if you drop it off in person.

Indeed. If you think the results from yesterday were a shellacking, imagine the carnage if there was no early or mail-in voting. In VA in particular there were ballots cast as early as late September. Given the turn of the contest in the final weeks, nobody could say with a straight face they would have all lined up to vote for McAuliffe in person. There's a reason certain groups want to bank those votes in advance.

No one is forced to vote early with mail in ballots.

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 things that involve the legal system, it's not the law abiding that we're worried about.

While the concerns are true, I am not sure if they are applicable to a society with higher levels of trust like I assume much of the US is in.

At least it is not a problem I know about where I live.

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.

In Colorado, the return envelope has a unique barcode and has to be signed on the outside. Not fullproof, since they could print a new envelope with the same code and forge the signature, but not as easy as just having a stack of return envelopes to use.

You can't just return your ballot in any envelope, you'd have to have access to excess return envelopes which is a tall task.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by adding marks invalidating the ballot. If you fill out a ballot incorrectly, the poll workers will notify you that there are issues with your ballot.

If there were canvassers knocking on doors and offering bribes for ballots you would hear about it here in Washington state. People here take their voting rights seriously.

Indeed. It's not unheard of that a local election in Britain is invalidated because of voting irregularities - someone collected ballot papers and made sure the vote goes to their man. I hear that that happens in ethnic enclaves in Miami as well.

The vote doesn't have to be convenient, but it absolutely has to be safe. Voter intimidation is impossible with in-person voting.

The book is terrible. I toss it out and read the proposal or at the worst look it up on a few sites that track issues. There is not enough information for complex issues and the wording in my experience is very biased. It takes me more time to vote, but at least I can make an informed decision.

> People where I live get a ballot and a book in the mail weeks before the election with details for all the candidates and questions, and all you have to do is drop it in the outgoing mail.

Are the votes not secret or are the votes not verified as authentic?

Votes are secret and verified to ensure there is only 1 vote per person.

https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/faq_vote_by_mail.aspx

It's not that simple. There was a multi-million dollar (I believe it was $18MM) coordinated campaign against Sweeny in 2017 that failed. It wasn't about offering voters a choice, they've had choices in the past.

You're right its not. But there's something to be said for voting for one of two insiders or an insider versus an outsider.

I don't think Mr. Durr's achievement is replicable. In my opinion, significant election reform is necessary.

> Well come to find about, of the 500 people who signed the petition to get this kid on the ballot, 1200 rescinded their support.

> You do the math.

I did and, well...

squints at those numbers

"The Chicago-School of Mathematics".

0.1% were dictating policy. The other 19.9% of the votes were just following directions.

Grew up near Chicago but long gone before this happened so I looked it up:

> Krupa needed 473 valid signatures of ward residents to get on the ballot. He filed 1,729 signatures with the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. He earlier said he filed 1,703 but missed a page of signatures.

> A crew of mysterious political workers — perhaps they were Buddhist monks, or the gentle sun people known as the Eloi, or maybe Madigan precinct captains — filed 2,796 petitions of revocation of signature. That means 2,796 ward residents filed legal affidavits that they wanted their signatures taken off Krupa’s petitions.

> The Madigan men filed 187 affidavits of revocation matching Krupa signatures. But Dorf, a progressive who’d done election work for the late Mayor Harold Washington and former President Barack Obama, put in a Freedom of Information Act request asking the board to give him all the revocations affidavits that were filed.

> All 2,796 of them.

> “And that’s where the fraud comes in, that’s where the felonies come in,” Dorf said. “Almost 2,800 affidavits were filed. But only 1,726 people signed petitions for Krupa. And of the 2,800 affidavits, the 13th Ward could only find 187 signatures that matched.

> Subtract 187 from 2,796 and you get 2,609 — that’s a lot of possible felonies, either perjury or voter intimidation.

Ref: https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/john-kass/ct-met-chic...

We’ve got some pretty convincing evidence of corruption and election fraud here.

BUT, rest assured this is extremely rare and these same people wouldn’t dare tamper with any other kind of election. Nor would this happen anywhere else in the United States. Anyone who asserts an election was subject to fraud is attacking democracy itself. /s

> Anyone who asserts an election was subject to fraud is attacking democracy itself. /s

I trust you are referring to problems with the 2020 election? I would appreciate learning what analogies you see between mob-like coercion and the election

Yes, for the most part. I do not think the doubts and suspicious anomalies are new or unique to the 2020 election, though.

As for the mob-like coercion, I don’t think there was this same kind of intimidation going on in 2020. I was using this concrete example of election fraud to refute the oft-touted assertion that voter fraud is vanishingly rare in the United States, and, it is never serious enough to affect an election.

In a naïve way I hope it opens the door to people being willing to accept the idea that if fraud can happen in big corrupt cities, it can happen elsewhere and we should tighten up our oversight laws.

Election irregularities are regular enough that fraud should be a plausible conjecture. Maybe the implicit goal is to limit obvious fraud enough to only make a difference in very close elections when the elect do not receive a big mandate one way or another and to maintain the fiction of votes making a difference.

Followup to "Election irregularities are regular enough that fraud should be a plausible conjecture."

I think increased interest in election integrity after a contested election are great to the extent that high integrity processes are the truth to which society should work towards. Disputes about specific irregularities post-election are less valuable and a generic response could be "well, you should have cheated better."

And I assume those 2,609 were then charged and went to prison right? Right?

Ah who am I kidding.

Something was mentioned about 150k total voters, but only 32k ever voted for the incumbent.

150,000 people eligible to vote. 32,000 votes for the incumbent. Hence, 118,000 people who would either vote for someone else or could be persuaded to come and vote.

Yep. DecisionDesk shows GOP got 32,682 whereas the incumbent DEM got 30,352 with 96% in.

The 2020 election mobilized certain demographics in NJ to vote, and there's been a moderately successful campaign to paint the sitting governor as literally Hitler for the last two years.

Systemic corruption

Quoting Durr in Politico: [0]

Durr said Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s coronavirus executive orders, vaccine and school mask, unemployment benefits snafus and a general distrust of the South Jersey Democratic machine that has dominated the region for years all contributed to his strong performance.

Sweeney, Durr said, “never challenged” Murphy during the pandemic.

  “You have the debacle of unemployment. The masking of the kids in school.
  You have Senator Sweeney trying to take away peoples’ medical freedom rights.
  I think the perfect storm was that he stepped into
  a pile of you-know-what and couldn’t get out of it because he didn’t
  know which way to turn. I just tapped into the right focus.”

[0] https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2021/11/03/...

I think many people, if they aren't exposed to it or live around it, underestimate the massive anger and frustration that exists towards the Covid restrictions and policies, and vaccine mandates.

I'm beginning to come around to this point of view: https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/peacefield/617c7b245793d... - we are not a serious nation.

There's a global pandemic caused by an airborne pathogen, and people throw an absolute hissy fit over a minor inconvenience like masks. My kids wear them all day long in school, and while they don't love them, they are not constantly whining about them like some adults.

My grandparents, on the other hand, dealt with wartime rationing for years (and they were lucky, because they lived in a place where they could hunt) because our country was in a global battle with Nazis. And all that after the depression.

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 which the truck driver also ran on.

> 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.

By how much, and is it worth it? The first is a scientific question. The second is a political question. Americans fail because neither side recognizes the difference.

Other developed countries are not masking kids as young as we are doing. Countries like France are rescinding mask mandates now. For us, there is no end in sight, even in highly vaccinated areas.

We went to Italy over the summer, and mask usage was ubiquitous. Nothing fancy, just the basic surgical ones. They are required in schools there because children come into contact with adults.

"Is it worth it" is an ongoing question; at some point, it's probably not, but we're not there just yet. Our vaccination rates are still pretty low. And remember: the bellowing about masks started before we even had vaccines.

"we're not there just yet" is a political decision, not a scientific one.

Yes, but it can be based on more objective statistics though, like the local hospital being overrun with COVID patients, as ours was over the summer.

It is a political decision to weigh all the various and multiple "facts" and make a value judgement involving tradeoffs of which interests are prioritized and which are subordinated.

It is a political and value judgement to err on the side of minuscule improvement, if any at all, from wearing masks and mandating vaccines for cohorts that statistically don't need to worry about covid, while degrading the social development of children, and hurting the wider economic interests of people affected by endless restrictions. These are all political questions. There are no all encompassing "facts" that delineate who is harmed and who is helped and in what proportions. That is the realm of politics.

> Our vaccination rates are still pretty low

Not really, 221 Million have had it-least 1 shot in the US and another 73 Million are under 18 and are at almost no risk (558 total deaths).

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.

> Explain that to the kids that died

At least 9 out of 10 children in the ICUs in North Carolina were obese.

https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c...

The iron-fisted one-size-fits-all approach has never been used in medicine and health except COVID.

Nice of you to discard anyone with a health problem.

Perhaps. But if such conditions increase risk why is the government reluctant to promote that fact? What is gained in the lack of honesty and transparency?

Along the same lines, ingoring this differentiator has allowed the gov the take a heavy handed on size fits all approach. If the risk is targeted, why is the loss of rights applied to everyone?

Finally, this approach is now being used to jab the kids.

That isn't justice. In fact - whether anyone agrees or disagree s - it smells like textbook authoritarianism. In that context, we are all discarded.

Huge numbers of people have at least one co-morbidity. The number of perfectly healthy people is probably a minority of the country. The number of co-morbidity rises with declining income and dangerousness of work.

So all the bushiness owners and fancy lad writers, managers, programmers, and other white collars are better positioned to withstand the pandemic with virtually every advantage in both isolation and physical health. All those guys that eat shit because they don't have money or time and burn themselves out physically working hard get to die.

In a slightly different category of person, it's morbidly fascinating watching unvaccinated people on twitter note their buddy just died and say they had comorbidities with a profile pic that shows them to be obese.

In this case, we have to judge whether the petty authoritarianism of those that spread illness and death vs the government pushing everyone to help stop that with, at this point, a fairly convincingly safe vaccine.

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

"Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%" (For medical professionals)

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.long

Why does everyone promote cloth masks, instead of proper N95 masks?

In Italy (we visited relatives this summer), everyone was wearing surgical masks, with some N95 here and there. No one had cloth masks. Surgical masks are cheap and easy to make and a country as wealthy as the US could ensure that everyone has an ample supply. We could probably even do that with N95's at this point.

Surgical masks are cloth masks.

Blocking the faces of children in the prime of their life, where they need to develop social skills through interaction and facial expression, is madness.

The covid risk for children is a rounding error. This is not prudent risk management; mind-boggling for someone from the tech industry who should be able to do a cursory look at statistics and dismiss this practice out of hand.

  > Blocking the faces of children in the prime of their 
  > life, where they need to develop social skills through 
  > interaction and facial expression, is madness.

[Citation needed.] I am unable to find a single reliable source that says mask wearing has any sociological or psychological effect on children or anyone else. Anecdotally, I haven't seen anything like that. Just typical kids.

  > The covid risk for children is a rounding error.

Again, who says that's true? Can't find it. The Ohio Department of Health maintains a dashboard[1] for this, which indicates that it's significant enough to track, and the numbers there sure aren't "rounding error" numbers.

Assuming what you meant is "children are less likely to develop severe symptoms," and also that that's true: they can still spread the virus to the adults they live with in their homes, or the many adults that share the school building they're in. (Did you think we just shove kids in an adult-less environment, or that teachers are somehow immune?)

[1]: https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboa...

> I am unable to find a single reliable source that says mask wearing has any sociological or psychological effect on children or anyone else.

You are looking for the wrong thing. Look for what the benefits of things like smiling and seeing smiling faces has on people's emotional health.

> A happy face signals positive emotions, as well as attachment availability, care, support, and credibility [7,8,9]. Recently, Tamir and Hughes [10] argued that positive social signals such as smiling faces not only serve ultimate goals (e.g., forming strong bonds) but they are also rewarding in and off themselves.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356968/

https://www.healthline.com/health/baby/when-will-my-baby-smi...

Hiding the main part of your face - the smile is not healthy for people, and especially not for kids whose entire social skills development heavily relies on these things.

You're only saying that you don't care about the detrimental effects of masking children or disrupting normal education processes, because adults will have some minor unspecified improvement on their rate of catching covid. Ok.

I disagree that it's worth harming kids development to attempt to avoid spreading a coronavirus that is becoming endemic, will always be around, and whose spread can't be stopped. Not worth it.

Ohio total covid deaths: 24,763

Ohio total 18 and under covid deaths: 12

Ohio total 18 and under population (2019): 2,578,019

If this isn't a rounding error, what is?

I see maskless parents shepherding their masked small children around. The kids are obviously self conscious about the masks, and at the same time, they appear to be proud to wear them.

> they appear to be proud to wear them

Being proud to be "obedient" is not always a good thing. Also this cannot be generalized. Plus it doesn't make something being mandatory right, especially when looking at people's smiles is crucial for kids development.

I don't mean to suggest that it's right, or even mandatory.

What I'm observing is that peculiar mix of self consciousness, smugness, and pride you sometimes see in young children, when they believe they are acting morally.

I'm not using quite the right words here - the emotions I'm listing are more mature. But the same emotions exist in children, just not fully matured.

Since the parents were maskless, I think the kids wanted to wear theirs because they've been taught at school that it's the right thing to do. The ones I observed appeared to be around eight years old.

Kids are proud to wear something that makes it harder for them to breathe and recognise the emotions of others? Give me a break...

Darn so blind or other kids with bad vision don’t get most psychological development? Are we doing anything about this? It has to be a major crisis for all those people to grow up with stunted psychological development.

Probably it doesn't help that political leaders all over the world wear masks only for photo shoots. Internet is full of videos how they take masks off the second after shoot is over.

People rightfully consider this to be a hypocrisy.

People rightfully consider this to be a hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy can effectively dampen voter turnout of your supporters if they are idealistic enough. But it's an absolute non-factor if you can sufficiently demonize your opponent(s) and their positions, just look at Trump and how he has wrapped Evangelical America around his little finger.

I would be ok with the orders if they really thought they were going to help. I was ok with the initial lockdowns, politicians where scared, and acted fast the best way they could.

Most orders after that where just polling their voters to see what they could do and look like "they are doing something" but angering the least people possible. That's bullshit, and even the governor of San Francisco and the governor of California where found bending their policy or breaking the rules multiple times.

Fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask in most settings.

The choice is yours: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do.

- The White House, May 14, 2021

https://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse/videos/its-vaxxed-or-mas...

'When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?'

It looked like things were improving, and the more contagious Delta variant (or, as the airline likes to write, B.1.617.2) turned up.

Where I live in Oregon, our hospital was overflowing with people towards the end of summer, to the point where people have died because they couldn't get 'elective' surgery. In that kind of situation, you use a 'defense in depth' strategy, which includes both vaccines and masks.

It's really not that big of a problem to wear one.

> 'When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?'

That's not the problem. The problem is that those who were saying the "now correct" thing prior to the "experts" changing their minds were first called misinformation. The "experts" make definitive statements without any nuance and when they get proven wrong, they don't apologize.

For example the Press Secretary said "this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated" a week ago and then couple days later, she tested positive.

Here's another example:

> “We don't talk enough to you about this, I don't think. One last thing that's really important is, we're not in the position where we think that any virus, including the Delta virus, which is much more transmissible and more deadly in terms of unvaccinated people, the -- the various shots that people are getting now cover that. You're OK. You're not going to -- you're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.” - Biden said on Jul 22.

I posted in July on HN that Israel's data shows this statement is literally not true. But I was called misinformation.

My masked son had a low pulse ox in his checkup. About 80, the same number that with covid should necessitate a hospital visit.

Supposedly a lot of kids have needed to demask to get a good pulse ox. As a parent this terrifies me.

Masks don't work at all and never have, so your school is just making your kids unhappy for no reason.

https://ianmsc.substack.com/p/every-comparison-shows-masks-a...

They don't "whine" because they know it's pointless and the school/you will punish them if they do. Adults have more options.

Actual scientists doing real research have shown that masks do indeed work, even if they do not, of course, prevent transmission 100% of the time. I mean... the thing is airborne, why wouldn't they help?

Your intuitions about airborne transmission are based on the idea of viruses being carried in relatively huge droplets of water, which due to their size and weight would rapidly fall to the ground. Hence constantly wiping surfaces clean, sneezing into the nook of your arm, mask mandates and lockdowns reducing transmission, etc.

This theory is inconsistent with the evidence: mask mandates have no effect on case numbers and nor did lockdowns. Whether you like this or not is irrelevant - the data is final. Therefore the droplet theory is wrong, and by extension theories based on it are also wrong.

There is an alternative theory of how SARS-CoV-2 spreads through the air: that the viruses can exist in fine aerosols that can be suspended in the air for relatively long periods. This theory is consistent with the evidence actually available:

1. It's consistent with islands that closed their borders early being able to keep the virus out, but nowhere else.

2. It's consistent with mask wearing having no effect, because masks aren't airtight. You still need to breathe in the surrounding air and the holes in masks are much too large to stop a very fine suspended aerosol. Additionally it wouldn't matter even if they are airtight and very good filters because there's evidence the virus can enter via the eyeballs too.

3. It's consistent with lockdowns having no effect. Even in "lockdown" lots of people still need to be in areas recently vacated by other people, like shops, factories, anything to do with the supply chain.

4. It's consistent with the apparent lack of infections outside. Where the wind blows, aerosols emitted by an infected person are rapidly dispersed in the air.

5. It's consistent with the failure of measures like handwashing to keep the virus out of care homes.

It's also consistent with SARS-CoV-1, in which an outbreak was investigated and the conclusion was it circulated through an apartment block via air in drainpipes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/i...

That isn't possible with the droplet theory, but is perfectly possible with aerosol theory.

The fact that "actual scientists" doing "real research" show that masks work is actually evidence that their research is garbage and they aren't "actual scientists", at least not if we define scientists as people who successfully apply the scientific method to understand reality. If they worked then you'd be able to consistently see the impact in case numbers, but that's simply impossible.

If you read any of their studies you'll soon be struck by how universally poor the quality of COVID research actually is. The scientific method as normally meant has more or less gone AWOL and what's left behind is a bunch of people who very much have an agenda desperately trying to justify why their previous advice wasn't wrong. I really couldn't care less what "actual scientists" think at this point. If they want to be taken seriously they need to provide evidence that's strongly convincing on its own merits, because their institutional credibility has long since turned to dust.

Yeah, the pandemic has really highlighted how many people rather adjust their world view and deny basic facts when accepts something that's uncomfortable or just plainly don't want to make even the smallest sacrifice for society.

Define “the smallest sacrifice”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxFhMVIPodk

Rossman is biased, but the facts do speak for themselves here. I couldn't believe this video

That's an hour long video, could you provide a TL;DW?

Basically, the state borrowed money against unrealistic stock market returns on pension fund investments.

OMG! New Jersey is going to be like a timeshare... some people are going to be stuck or have to pay someone to take their house. Hopefully they'll be able to get away from tax obligations though by letting the government take their property to pay the ungodly property taxes! I always thought Illinois was bad... "Hold my beer." - New Jersey

If you are a New Jersey pension fund recipient (and you're smart), you moved out of New Jersey as quickly as possible.

> how NJ got into this predicament?

Possibly due to attitudes like describing an average citizen beating a career politician as “a predicament”

GOT 'EM.

Real talk, I think there is a certain level of education we should desire for politicians, since generally speaking, it denotes a certain dedication to understanding many facets of society. That said, career politicians are completely bogus all the way through.

There is a minor way in which this situation can become a predicament. Outsiders who become governors don’t tend to have a network or know how the mechanisms work, so tend to either get nothing done or end up having little input into things being done by those who do know those things.

But having an outsider as a legislative member is generally a good thing.

In California we have term limits, so no member of the legislature (or any other position) can have the time to develop expertise. This gives lobbyists a lot more power.

For those who think government has too much power, getting nothing done isn’t as bad as it seems.

I kinda like having speed limits, food safety rules, building codes, courts, free vaccines (removing barriers to your vaccination helps me, just as mine helps you) and a bunch of other things governments do.

Having lived in countries both with and without generally well meaning and competent government, in my experience the former is vastly better despite its manifold faults.

I know right, we’re watching democracy in action. This is what a really good system looks like

It's still a pretty shit system. A good system would have more than 2 people and instant runoff.

... so run for election, then there will be 3 people

Not from the US, my country already has a multiple party system.

I am not form the U.S.

I think the problem is not that average citizen managed to beat the career politician, that is (possibly?) the good part.

In my view the problem is that this average citizen now has to deal with other career politicians and if he doesn't have the experience in these dealings, his constituents will probably end up worse off.

What is the solution?

I don't know, I am an average citizen so I would prefer someone who has more knowledge about these things to work on it and then present options to us average citizens in a clear and unbiased manner.

It's not that he's an "average citizen" that's objectionable, it's that, based on quotes posted in other sub-threads and the campaign video that someone posted, he ran on an anti-mask, anti-lockdown, COVID-downplaying platform and won. The question is how did NJ get into this predicament where people with these views are winning elections? I can see this happening in Mississippi or something, but New Jersey?

South Jersey and suburbs all over the state are just as conservative as places to the south or west of it. The CRT moral panic successfully mobilized a lot of suburban voters to get involved in local politics.

Because masks and lockdowns go against their interests, and they oppose people like you mandating these policies on them. It's just that simple.

And the numbers of these people is much much larger than you're aware of, likely for reasons of media bias hiding this information from you and geographic diversity of political views and values.

>And the numbers of these people is much much larger than you're aware of, likely for reasons of media bias hiding this information from you and geographic diversity of political views and values.

And the chilling effect of socially shaming people as "plague rats" for resisting lockdowns and mandates.

I dont think you realize how unpopular the masks and lockdowns are among people. Especially when it comes to kids being masked.

I believe the platform for the right has consolidated to - ending mask/lockdown/mandate - letting parents have a voice in their children's school agendas - making fun of runaway inflation

This is going to be difficult to run against, in many states besides "Mississippi".

Eye opening for sure. I just thought these people were merely "loud but a tiny minority"-- a handful of trolls and professional victims performing for YouTube. All those wacky people ranting at School Board meetings make great Internet entertainment, but surely there weren't significant numbers of them. I guess I need to get out more. Can't believe being against public health has actually become a legit, winnable political platform. All over a little piece of cloth. Unbelievable.

It's a predicament when someone who has different politics than you gets elected? Are you saying that you've just solved politics then? Should you be our king?

People turned out to vote for the marquee election, the governor's race, and voted for that party all the way down the ballot. Almost anyone from the republican party would have wound up in the same position

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.

If NJ is in such deep waters. Which it seems like it is. What is up with the stats and data of which states give more to the fed than what they get back and Vice versa. Why is NJ always giving more? If they have so much debt?

> Why is NJ always giving more? If they have so much debt?

Because we have progressive taxation and a lot of rich people live in New Jersey, so they pay more in taxes. A state doesn't need to be in financial trouble because it is poor, it is in financial trouble if it makes more promises than it can afford to pay given its tax base. The constant raiding of employee pension funds and various financial ponzi schemes is why NJ is in trouble.

    Median household income in 2019
    NJ[1] = 85K
    US[2] = 69K

[1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/NJ/SBO001212

[2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...

I don’t understand why NJ gives more than it gets back though. Is it only based around the state’s average income?

NH and MA have a similar dichotomy. NH residents commute into MA for work, where they pay MA income tax, and so the NH property taxes are usually higher than a comparable home in MA.

However, and no offense to NJ, I think living in NH has a ton of appeal. You're so close to amazing backpacking, skiing, lakes, etc. It's a really beautiful state. People staying in full time WFH are going to have an amazing balance of occasional office trips in MA and access to adventure.

The same way Hillary lost to an extreme right wing populist reality TV star. Leadership is dumber than what they think and just there because they are the least incompetent of the political caste, but they act as if they were the all righteous saviors while delivering nothing of value to their voters except for campaign promises.

Not trying to dunk, but comments like this -- assuming that a blue collar, republican challenger is automatically bad -- says a lot more about the OP than it does about the situation.

NJ isn't south jersey. south jersey could be reasonably plucked out of anywhere in deep red fly over country with 2 coasts(Atlantic,deleware) on each side.

It’s hilarious the GOP walked right into Murphy’s trap.

Murphy wanted Sweeney out, and this guy had the story and was in the right place at the right time to do it.

The best part is Duff or Fudd or whatever the guys name is going to get destroyed by the educated political elite of NJ’s legislature. It’s like a toddler playing sports with adults.

Next cycle that seat will have a D in it.

What exactly do you mean by "destroyed?"

I mean that he won’t be able to deliver anything for his voters because he is part of the minority where the majority holds both houses and the governorship.

Mr. Smith goes to Trenton. I am pleased that a blue collar person is engaged.

Wow, there really is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

What is the idea?

It would probably not be healthy for my karma to go deeper.

Seriously, what idea? This adds nothing to the conversation here.

Coming to this website every day to get downvoted and flagged is something not to worry about. I mean, have you read the things people say here? The ideas that are popular? Do you really want to be "the upvoted guy"?

Some of the happiest days in recent memories have been when a comment I made receives a flood of upvotes. I crave the validation of peers above all else.

I'll say it. People are tired of progressive extremism, like at once insisting that "CRT isn't being taught in schools" while with the other hand supporting CRT inspired school programs that teach racial awareness to children, and in particular white guilt to white children. You can look it up on the VA website, where CRT is explicitly mentioned as a part of primary school curriculum.

This is arguably the biggest elephant in the room - independents and moderate democrats are increasingly speaking openly about the fact that the democratic party is overtly anti-white. Search for it on reddit; before today at best such comments would be downvoted and at worst grounds for a ban. Now they're sitting at the top of the comment chains.

The election results in NJ and VA so far seem to mark a turning point. Hopefully soon enough to avoid the pendulum swinging back into true reactionary white supremacy - you know, the genocide kind. Meanwhile out of touch limousine liberals are doubling down on twitter and in media and blaming white supremacists for the election upsets. Something's going to break, one way or another.

From one white man to another white man: you're not being attacked, democrats aren't anti-white (have you looked at the leadership? very white indeed!), and you are still living in the system that our white ancestors made for us. Other people not being oppressed as much doesn't mean your liberties are at risk. It's OK to teach and learn about how racist people made racist systems.

You don't need to feel guilty, unless you are out here actively supporting racist systems? If you're trying to use the social privileges that come with being a white man in America to dismantle racist structures, then you're doing great! If you're tried and don't want to do that work, ok, understandable: just don't throw in your two cents I'd you see other people doing this intense labor.

>It's OK to teach and learn about how racist people made racist systems.

Read: your ancestors are racist, and made a racist system for you

>You don't need to feel guilty, unless you are out here actively supporting racist systems?

Read: here comes the guilt trip

>If you're trying to use the social privileges that come with being a white man in America to dismantle racist structures, then you're doing great! If you're tried and don't want to do that work, ok, understandable: just don't throw in your two cents I'd you see other people doing this intense labor.

Read: there it is.

At some point I figured people would realize this Kafkaesque formulation really turns people off. Any disagreement with the premise - any at all - and you are now required to retreat to claiming you're not a "racist" in front of someone who has set the rhetorical boundaries where such a claim is rejected outright, always. I actually think that's really the point, and it's nothing more than a new and pathological way to bully someone.

Look, first off, I'm not a white man. Second, I wasn't trying to debate whether this is right or wrong, only explaining why parents are voting out democrats. However I do take offense to your implication that teaching white children concepts like white privilege in a way that instills white guilt, and molding them to accept unilaterally determined reverse discrimination, does not constitute oppression.

It's quite possible to teach about racism and discrimination and slavery without burdening white children with what amounts to a rehashed original sin, obligating them to accept reverse racism as though it is the only way to correct historic wrongs which they had no part in.

>You don't need to feel guilty, unless you are out here actively supporting racist system

This is dishonest, because it is a refrain used to guilt people into supporting progressive policies by implication that they are racist if they don't, completely sidestepping the argument over whether such policies are sound.

>If you're trying to use the social privileges that come with being a white man in America to dismantle racist structures, then you're doing great!

This is also dishonest, because it sidesteps the question of whether or not white men are actually privileged to such an extent that artificially correcting for said privilege (i.e. creating institutional racism) is justified. It also ignores the question of whether our institutions are actually racist - to a modern progressive this is a given, but the science is ultimately based on correlation and conjecture. The strongest proof that pundits have of institutional racism is inequality of outcome; however in a perfect meritocracy it is irrational to conflate equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. See Nordic countries for an example.

To summarize, my primary points are twofold: the way that antiracism is being taught to white children is potentially harmful, and the degree to which our systems are actually unequal because of racism on behalf of whites is not nearly as certain as militant activists seem to believe. Before you downvote, recognize that I am communicating the perspective held by voters that are dramatically underrepresented online. And to an increasing degree they are not white, minorities do not appreciate the implication that they will forever be saddled with the burden of past oppression unless the white man steps in and helps them.

Incidentally, I have do have a personal stake the this matter, because the same points used to justify reverse discrimination against whites can trivially be aimed at Jews, given their drastic overrepresentation among positions of power and wealth. I personally don't think people realize how dangerous it is to teach such racial awareness to children, especially in such a discriminatory manner.

And I like how they've been hiding behind the "progressive" label, as if pushing for electric vehicles and the identity politics are equally progressive ideas.

That's something that bad guys have been doing for long time: they pick a good idea or symbol and attach themselves to it. This is how nazists have turned swastika (an ancient holy symbol) into something evil and how the supporters of the identity cult are destroying the image of the true progressives.

CRT isn't progressive extremism.

It's history.

America runs on Dunkin'

Probably has something to do with how Biden is doing.

According to this website he won but according to ballotopedia he lost?

Hmm.

Can't quite put my finger on it, but this type of thing rings a bell.

Looking at decision desk, he's leading with 96% in:

New Jersey State Senate 3

CANDIDATE | VOTES | PERCENT

Edward Durr GOP | 32,682 | 51.85%

Steve Sweeney DEM (Incumbent) | 30,352 | 48.15%

63,034 votes. Estimated 96% in. DDHQ, Updated 2021-11-03, 5:00:25 PM

https://results.decisiondeskhq.com/nov-2-2021-elections

According to this[0] New Jersey State Senate District 3 has an eligible population of around 176,344 (74.9% of total) in 2010. So roughly a 35.7% turnout (with a lot of assumptions and bad data).

I wish turnout was higher just so candidates were more representative no matter who ultimately won. But realistically when a single person represents over 150K citizens, it is hard to call it very representative regardless.

[0] https://ballotpedia.org/New_Jersey_State_Senate_District_3

> eligible population of around 176,344

That's misleading. It's the 158,476 registered voters that matter. Also has a very large unaffiliated voter base of 57,808 (36.5%).

> The district had 158,476 registered voters as of July 1, 2021, of whom 57,808 (36.5%) were registered as unaffiliated, 57,660 (36.4%) were registered as Democrats, 40,620 (25.6%) were registered as Republicans, and 2,388 (1.5%) were registered to other parties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey%27s_3rd_legislative...

link? I can't find any results on that level on ballotopedia yet?

If you can sign up to DecisionDesk, you can see it:

https://results.decisiondeskhq.com/nov-2-2021-elections

No.

https://ballotpedia.org/New_Jersey_State_Senate_elections,_2...

A newspaper had incorrectly called the race for the incumbent earlier yesterday. Ballotpedia possibly reflected that info.

Something's weird here:

"State campaign finance records show a slate of candidates including Durr raised more than $10,000 during their campaign but spent only $153: $66.64 at Dunkin to buy food and drinks for staff and $86.67 for paper flyers and business cards."

So he raised more than $10,000, but reports only spending $153. Then how much did he raise? Where did the remaining money go? And how did he pay for things like the video ads linked below or other outreach efforts if he only reported spending $153 on donuts and paper?

Is this a situation where outside donors/PACs financed everything so on paper he himself spent nothing?

What's weird about that. The campaign collected that much and didn't spend it.

The PACs financing everything wouldn't be reported as the $10,000 raised so you are conflating issues there.

It doesn't cost anything to put a video on the internet. He only needed to reach more than 30,000 people in his 1 district. If you look closely at more expensive campaigns, you'll see a lot of wasted money.

> how did he pay for things like the video ads linked below

Watch his ad:

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1455899165230354448?s=20

The "ad" looks like it could have been easily created on an old phone. It's a very basic ad, nothing special. Look at his twitter feed. The campaign material all looks very basic like it was created by his kids or someone. (Not saying that's a bad thing - I kinda like it as it looks more grassroots).

https://twitter.com/edwarddurr1/status/1418710865625354240

And based on archive, the day before election, his twitter only had 1556 followers meaning he didn't do any "online" reach out.

https://web.archive.org/web/20211101185415/https://twitter.c...

Also notice the top header photo on his archive twitter. It's just a stock photo with watermark still on the pic. Looks like an extremely lean campaign.

In a past interview from August, he stated:

> “Well, I’m a numbers guy and I’ve looked at the numbers over the years,” Durr said in an August interview conservative commentator Elizabeth Nader. “We have a district that is 150,00 voters. Senator Sweeney has never broken 32,000 votes …. and so I felt if he can’t even get half the district, that means there’s numbers out there to be taken, and you just have to get people to come out and vote. I believe if they come out and vote, we could win,” Sweeney said.

Reaching out and getting 20% to vote isn't that hard in a 150k size. So this looks like simply approaching maybe a few thousand families and houses and asking them to vote for him.

I mean the transition from talking about his kids to a shot of gravestones is... jarring, it's def a home made video and that's what makes it work.

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