jjbrr

can you qualify why you think this way? do you think we'd have fewer voters on strictly party lines? do you think some single-issue votes are obvious morally(abortion, marijuana, and climate among others, i suspect, would be incredibly skewed by minors; my position on all is probably clear)? is it related to religion, with the younger generation skewing more atheist? do you think 16-year olds are both more motivated and more capable of research on their own? or you just think old people are more likely bigots? likely some combination of all of the above. i'm closer to 16 than 65, obviously. i've also learned more about the world in the past 5ish years than i had in the previous 26ish, i believe. maybe i'll have lost a few steps by the time im 65, but hopefully i'll be able to afford some steps to lose.

My instinct suggests to me completing a W4 and having income withheld should make minors eligible to vote. I suspect a working minor has a better grasp of things like taxes, FICA, healthcare, etc etc, than a kid who makes no income, pays no taxes, and is dependent on the parents' insurance. Having said that, it is difficult for many adults to get voting eligibility, so who knows?

I feel a lot sure about this, and it's obvious to me that kids shouldn't vote about issues that affect adults. If they're passionate about something, they have plenty of avenues to be active in their community. That is enough. A competency requirement is also wrong because it will unquestionably target minorities specifically in many states. A better method would be to have ballots with names only. If you want to vote R, you have to research who the Rs are (har har). If you can't be bothered to do any research at all, the weight of your vote should be mitigated by everyone else who can't be bothered.

Since I'm apparently the problem here, I've written a script that does what the ignore feature should do, imo. I might tweak further, but it's good enough. Thanks for the inspiration.

Stop, that's incredibly dishonest. If I'm having a conversation with a group of people and someone continues to spew nonsense and interrupt others, you're so clever as to suggest a blindfold? Nice troll.

As has been said many times, the ignore feature doesn't actually ignore posts. It's an awful feature.

I'll qualify this comment with productive content. Barmar, if this were the climate change thread, it would be a different story. Nothing has really changed for some years and discussion is fairly monotone there. Some dissenting opinion is perhaps necessary to keep conversation going (if the goal is to keep conversation going; sometimes threads naturally run their course). This is the Trump thread; there are multiple scandals literally every day. I understand your concern that this will become an echo chamber itself of people who all share a set of generally common beliefs, but to suggest that there won't be conversation is crazy. I don't think there's any question that conflicting opinions are welcome here, but trolls should not be. It doesn't improve conversation when ldrews parrots the same talking points he's posted here many times that he saw on the TV a year ago. We all know how it goes; jobs are great, economy is great, the immigration problem is solved, etc etc. Yeah, that's just what this thread needs. Inane, mindless nonsense.

lol, jesus.

you're wrong, obviously, and that's lazy moderation. if you take care of the trolls, the "unproductive" content goes away. shocking.

great, no one is going to miss you. in fact, we look forward to not seeing any more of your posts. thanks and take care!

Of course it did

Oh look, a car chase!

This isn't even true, right? Schiff sent the memo to the DOJ to vet before sending it to the WH. Any further redactions at this point are political rather than for security.

What does that have to do with the number of jobs trump has promised to create?

The key takeaway here is that they actually honored a FOIA request. Incredible.

ok lil buddy. that's cute. run along now.

But obviously it's much worse when you take a composite of polls and not just a single one.

I'm partial to Mango Mussolini or Dorito Mussolini

Don't be disingenuous. Let's call a spade a spade. Among can't-thinkers, the Russians have succeeded to: Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance; Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures; Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions; Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign populations; Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction

Another point about Fredo-ism that I think bears mentioning is the brainwashing that Trump is doing to his base. Today he called democrats "treasonous" for not applauding him, or some other such nonsense. This has the effect of mitigating the severity of actual treason among his base, so that when, after months of investigation, he might be accused of actual treason, his base will hand-wave it away as more political rhetoric. Same with collusion. Fusion colluded with Hillary. FBI colluded with Hillary. Comey colluded with Hillary. Same with fake news. Same for "memos", which Comey wrote to himself and bore weight in his testimony about loyalty. Now the GOP is coming out with memos of their own which serve to discredit real work being done by competent investigators. Memos are, among his base, now political tools. Memos. Seriously. This is how democracy dies.

A "random Virginia man" had that to say? bullshit.

Right. Anyone capable of independent thought who has followed the news already knew this. This summary fails to mention that, while the investigation was run by republicans, a hyper-partisan trump stooge was at the helm and a democratic rebuttal was not allowed to be published. It's pure propaganda, and it's been thoroughly debunked.

You read it in one night?

"Rep. Devin Nunes, Chairman of the Intelligence Committee admits he did not read the FISA applications before writing the memo."

You lost this bet, for the record.