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I don't know. It's not Travis or any of those other counties. It's worth a look but I wouldn't rule out something strange.

This is a deeply concerning and saddening situation. I have family living in New Caledonia and above all I want them to be safe and secure.

As far as how we got to this point, there is plenty of blame to go around. Certainly the independentist position is becoming increasingly untenable after losing three referendums and with a growing share of residents being disenfranchised under the Noumea Accords. Still, at the end of the day the French state is in no position to just bowl over Kanaks' legitimate fears of being increasingly marginalized in their own lands, and there has to be a comprehensive solution to longstanding postcolonial dynamics. These issues aren't going to be solved by deploying the army or banning TikTok, and it's high time the incompetent blowhards in government take a page from Rocard and Jospin and actually take the effort to negotiate a compromise everyone can live with. This situation is too serious to think about it in slogans.

I think that’s sort of the thing though, that you can’t all the third referendum a legitimate democratic excercise. Macron and Guerini rushed it through to get it out of the way as quick as possible, without going through the necessary consultation with the interested parties. As a result of which the independentists boycotted it, feeing somewhat understandably that they were not being given a fair hearing and a result they do not feel that the Nouméa process is complete.

Of course updating the electoral register is a democratic necessity, and it was always supposed to happen post Nouméa. But if Macron had actually gone into this process without his entirely predictable sense of entitled ignorance and high minded contempt and seen Noumea through rather than pissing all over the process then we wouldn’t be here right now.

Oh for sure, the government made a huge blunder rushing the last referendum, in typical FBM fashion. But at the end of the day the boycott was the independentists' choice, and I think it was also a huge mistake. There was no reason not to fight it out, especially with how close 2020 had been. I hate to have a "both sides" commentary but the situation is nuanced and serious enough that I am willing to say both sides need to do better here.

As backward as Tennessee is, Alabama is even more so.  Nevertheless, VW unionized in Chattanooga, and the Mercedes vote was 45 percent yes.

At the very least, the threat to unionize caused Mercedes to increase salaries somewhat and to provide further bonuses.  So I would say the UAW and the union-friendlier NLRB made some positive impact for the workers.  And the opportunity to vote again will come back soon.

Ah, the doom and gloom. The only polls that matter are the exit polls on Election Day.

That being said, these numbers are atrocious for Biden. As a Gen Z voter myself, I am disenchanted with the state of the union right now. Still, I think that Biden has a fighting chance to recover in these 6 months if he plays his cards right. So far the 2020 Biden coalition is fractured, and previous elections have shown that polls consistently underestimate Trump. I think we will see Biden get a ton of soft support back after the conventions once the reality of the rematch sets in. A conviction of Trump will only complicate things for him further and should even things up by Election Day.

Biden needs to rethink his electoral strategy. Gains with White voters alone won’t save him, he needs to show he’s doing something on the economy and trying to make peace abroad. Going all in on WI/PA/MI and adding NC should be the strategy. Play defense in those states as well as the 2016 states. The others are lost.

Rednecks and support muhTroops country.

Anyone who was ever stationed in Europe under the age of 22 knows the whole BWI / Frankfurt journey and knows Cancun Cantina.  Intimately.  

Just sayin'

It is certainly possible for Hispanos/Nuevomexicanos to shift rightward in a manner similar to how Tejanos shifted rightward recently, but this would require Republicans to actually invest significantly in this group (the recent rightward shift among Tejanos was largely in part because Republicans actually invested significantly with that group).

A lot of comments in this thread have been focused on flood/hurricane-prone Florida and wildfire/earthquake-prone California.  I would point out that the article in the OP is talking about insurers pulling out of previously profitable states like Iowa and Wisconsin.

I always feel like the earthquake argument with respect to just California is a misnomer. California gets some tremors here and there, but it gets off pretty well when you look at the larger Ring of Fire. Loma Prieta and Northridge are the major earthquakes of consequence since 1906. I don't know what LA has done, but the Bay Area has taken significant efforts to prepare for the worst. It doesn't have to be horrifically expensive either. Japan is probably the model for the world in terms of earthquake preparedness. All of that doesn't even factor in the fact that the most worrisome areas for a massive earthquake are off the Juan de Fuca Plate and the New Madrid Seismic Zone, well beyond California's borders.

The "Joe Biden is Hamas" lady now blaming us for the dead hostages. We are so hostile that just the other day the House passed a bill making military funding contingent on Israel spending, placing Israel's security above our own, yet still most of Israeli society thinks we're horrible. Why is this? How much more of a sugar daddy must we be before this country is finally thankful?

https://twitter.com/CarolineGlick/status/1791491736121843847?t=PBBUi0pDc0frnP6Et...

How many times are you going to pretend this joke of a failed politician turned pundit is worthy of a diplomatic incident with a nuclear ally?

For those who don't get it, Caroline Glick is a far-right columnist and social media figure, not an Israeli official. This would be like France expelling the US ambassador over Rush Limbaugh insulting them during the Iraq War.

Horus believes all Israelis are ontologically evil, it doesn't really matter to him who they are. If they're from Israel they're taken as representative of of the Israeli hivemind

No, he does not. To even reach that conclusion requires deliberately mischaracterising him.

The "Joe Biden is Hamas" lady now blaming us for the dead hostages. We are so hostile that just the other day the House passed a bill making military funding contingent on Israel spending, placing Israel's security above our own, yet still most of Israeli society thinks we're horrible. Why is this? How much more of a sugar daddy must we be before this country is finally thankful?

https://twitter.com/CarolineGlick/status/1791491736121843847?t=PBBUi0pDc0frnP6Et...

How many times are you going to pretend this joke of a failed politician turned pundit is worthy of a diplomatic incident with a nuclear ally?

For those who don't get it, Caroline Glick is a far-right columnist and social media figure, not an Israeli official. This would be like France expelling the US ambassador over Rush Limbaugh insulting them during the Iraq War.

Horus believes all Israelis are ontologically evil, it doesn't really matter to him who they are. If they're from Israel they're taken as representative of of the Israeli hivemind

I don't know all of the legal issues in this case, but are federal charges possible (presuming none have been brought so far)?