CardinalBacker

Here's the difference... Trump won the electoral college in 2020... he was the President. But he wasn't the popular choice. More people wanted HILLARY CLINTON to be the President than Trump. Let that sink in. Then you have four years of complete buffoonery from the Oval Office and even more people turned out to vote for "anybody but that jerk." Trump lost.... but Him and His loyalists can't handle the truth and you end up with the whole "Stop the Steal" nonsense and ultimately a failed insurrection on 1/6/21. Since then independent investigations keep finding piles of evidence that indicate that Trump committed crimes. At first it was "oh, yeah! Of course He got indicted! It's a liberal prosecutor from NYC!" Now that the feds have indicted him on something that any reasonable person completely understands, and it's "Oh the Justice Department is weaponized!" Y'all sound as bad as the Dindu Nuffins. So, the feds realize that top secret info is missing. They ask for it back and Trump's team stonewalls. Then get some of it back and Trump's lawyers say "ok, that's it." Then they go search His place and guess what? They found boxes of additional top secret documents. Trump (and the rest of you clowns) believe that the laws of the land don't apply to Trump, and that's why reasonable people can't stand Trump or His blind followers. And it's why the Republicans have gotten obliterated in every major election since 2016 and will get burned down again in 2024.

The sad thing is that Trump's fanboys hear him say "classified? I can de-classify anything I want to, just by thinking "this doesn't need to be classified.... bigly!" and they all yeah "YEAH! What He said!!! No crime was committed." What do you think would happen if they found you with boxes of top secret classified docs in your attic? I'll give you a hint... "Enjoy Leavenworth." For some reason Trump loyalists literally believe that He CANNOT commit a crime. Nothing He has ever done is wrong, despite the mountains of evidence that you can find at any turn. They'll listen to talk radio and be like "Oh, yeah? Hunter Biden smoked crack and knocked up a stripper... BIDEN needs to go to prison!!!" and then turn around and hear Trump's actual voice trying to get election officials to steal the election and go "that prosecution is a witch hunt!" Y'all are unhinged.

Just because you really, REALLY believe it doesn't make it true. Easy on the cut and paste, too...

Can’t believe that nobody’s talking about this. Seventeen FEDERAL charges. I’m still expecting Georgia to indict him over his conduct in 2020.

Nah.... you just "play" football by putting on a jersey (but no pads) and just chill on the sideline, helping the qb warm up or whatever.... but you're on the team, right?

Mark my words... the Cards won't do any worse in than they did last year. 1. Lowest scoring team in 4AD2 2. Winless in District 3. We've got nowhere to go but up. Or stay right here at the bottom. But we won't be any worse.

Jeez....

I thought the quote was made up by a poster.

I'm on Travelocity booking my room in Arlington as week speak.

Trump has the inside track and a big head start. Desantis doesn’t seem to be rising to the occasion at all. Some people on that list would make a decent President (Pence), but I don’t see anybody capable of winning it all. Somebody is going to have to rise to the top, but I just don’t see it.

I misspoke. The state has little control over what is done with the revenue generated by property taxes. None of money collected in property taxes make it back to the state. If collection was centralized via an income tax, consumption tax, etc.... that money would then be dispensed back out to the local entities in the way that Austin sees fit. The scary part is how the "savings" promised in this legislative session are being funded (17b) by roughly half of the surplus (33b). The problem isn't taxes... it's out of control spending in local government, some of which is being mandated by the State. We were involved in heavy equipment... in the old days, the County Barn was the home of the most raggedy equipment you'd ever seen. These days the governmental entities have nicer iron on the ground than the for-profit operations. Ten years ago the sheriff's office used cars... these days everybody has a Tahoe at double the cost. Almost every stadium in SETX has new turf, big scoreboards, and the schools themselves are amazing... but all of it comes at a price. When I was in high school, we had a principal, assistant principal, and two counselors for roughly 800 kids. Today the admin for that same sized school probably approaches 40 salaries. There were about half a dozen kids in SPED back then... today the SPED department in a school that size probably has 50 kids in it. Why? They get more funding for SPED. Almost every town in SETX has a new city hall, or plans to sling one up. Every city has an EDC. The list goes on and on and on. The problem isn't taxes, it's out of control spending.

This isn't something that could be done without the Legislature. I guess a million plus dead Americans was all BS, too.

My opinion is that it's all smoke and mirrors. As it stands, your local government collects property taxes that fund counties, a large portion of schools, cities, fire districts, etc.... all of your local entities. The state has little control over those taxes, except by mandates they hand down to the entities and the occasional tax relief bill that limits the amounts collected by local entities. The plan is for the state to move in and take over all of those funds. There won't be an "Orange County Consumption Tax Office." That money will be collected at the state level and you'd better hope that all of those hairy-legged women in the Peoples' Republic of Austin see fit to send some of that money back this way instead of funding studies to determine the gender of trees or whatever. My personal opinion is that state government will get the supposedly "low tax" conservatives to agree to a consumption tax while they "phase out" property taxes.... then they'll forget about the "phase out" part of the process. Nobody seems to understand that those thousands of dollars that they're taking annually will still have to be paid. I guess the question is whether or not you'd like to pay them as a property tax or a consumption tax. Don't even get me started on the fact that consumption taxes hurt lower income people way worse than the wealthy. Think about this... If that consumption tax sets in, it'll bump the costs of you're consumables that you need to survive. If a person has to spend every nickel that they earn just to survive, that tax will affect them. I know a guy whose wife works and she puts 100% of her bi-weekly paychecks into savings... she's literally working to provide health insurance and contribute towards and early retirement. The consumption tax won't affect her income/savings AT ALL. But it you are a large corporation like CBL that owns Parkdale Mall, your multi-million dollar tax bill goes away and the only thing you're paying a consumption tax upon is the toilet paper they put in the mall bathrooms. Does that sound fair to you?

All I'm saying is that in a couple of years you'll drive through Vidor and see an old Mercury Topaz rolling through town without even a windshield to put an inspection sticker on. Write it down.

Son, that's every year in Bridge City!

Nah.... that was a really heated game. Long story behind that one. BC got taken to the woodshed. My personal favorite was Silsbee at BC the same year. Silsbee had Calvin Tyler, Jr and BC pulled out the win to seal District.

I'm gonna go with "no," but I've been wrong before. Once. That time I thought I was wrong.

It's the only way for white people to be "oppressed." If you want to be a victim (and you're white), you can just be "trans."

Follow me here… after slavery ended, they needed people who were willing to work. They intended to use immigrants to replace slave labor. And that’s kinda what happened.

I've heard that it was widely hailed as an incentive for people to immigrate here years and years ago when the country was largely undeveloped and we were needing strong backs and simple minds. Keep in mind that in the same time frame that this was passed, we were giving chunks of land away across the country to anybody wanting to homestead the place. We needed immigrants at the time. Still do, but just not errrbody.

I’ve always been a strong swimmer but as I’ve aged and gotten less active I actually feel a little vulnerable in open water these days. It’s not something I’ve ever been concerned about. I think at this point I’d probably wear a life jacket when underway. One thing that drives me nuts is young guys wearing waders in the boat. If you were to end up in the water wearing clothes, waders, and a jacket, what are the odds that you could shuck your jacket, unfasten your waders, get them off, and somehow manage to surface while still fully clothed, possibly in the dark? It’s just asking for a bad outcome.

You are correct... the minimum bid for the property is required to be the amount of taxes/costs due, or it's "market value".... whichever is lower. If the property sells for more than the minimum bid, the taxpayer has two years to request the excess proceeds from the sale... in Texas, anyways.

I thought the same thing. He can't do that... period.

I don’t even know what to say. The Cards had the “distinction” of being the lowest scoring team in 4AD2 for 2022, plus they’re headed back up to be one of the smallest schools in 4aD1. This is probably the worst job opportunity in the state. I think posting the job for outside candidates would have been a complete waste of time…. Time being something we don’t have, anyways. But on the other hand, how stupid do you have to be to start dipping out of work to sling snocones when you’re already doing this poorly in your job-job? Is that how they do it back wherever he came from?

I’m telling you… i was mildly bummed when Obama won, but McCain/Palin was a horrible ticket. I was really bummed when Obama got re-elected after a pretty lame first term and he had a decent opponent in Romney. It seemed to me like the Dems had finally managed to lock up the “stupid” vote… and there are a lot of them out there. Then in 2016 the Rs, went “not so fast, we’ve got our share of morons, too” and nominated Trump. Then for 2020, the Dems were like “I guess we’re just gonna have to show you that we really ARE the most ignorant” by nominating Biden/Harris. So this year the Rs are like “wanna run it back?” and the Ds were like “BET!!!” Thank you. I just curtsied.