Bernie even talked about it at the start, how he wanted to get a bipartisan bill with Trump on infrastructure, but it went nowhere

I'm more interested in your victim blaming rhetoric as means to justify FEMA denials. And your assertion that States that plan for emergencies should be less likely for FEMA consideration when they have their own emergency. The latter makes me ROFL because of your 'free shit' statement.

To answer your bolded questions from the top of my fuzzy mind...

1.) Local law enforcement and surrounding agencies did scramble together in an effort to control the unrest. The national guard was brought in rather rapidly, faster than what I seen in the wake of the DC riot.
2.) I recall seeing full deployments of riot police, swat, national guard on live streams. Blacked out vans patrolling the neighborhood of my family near Midway. Rubber bullets, eyes shot out, the works.
3.) (federal support request) Not entirely sure, I remember Walz being pretty inactive for a while until it was clear the Mayor of Minneapolis was a soyboy. Likely could have brought more enforcement in to resolve the problem.
4.) Not sure where you got your data for perpetrators stats, but that is in-line with my original statement of fringe extremists with a mix of out of state agitators. Also, a good mix of local opportunistic bad actors.



For what's its worth, I'm happy Texas is able to get the aid, that is what is there for. Stupid it is even politicized.

This post was edited by RedFromWinter on Feb 17 2021 09:53pm

"Infrastructure week" became a running gag...
So many missed opportunities. And like I said: Biden will probably not get an opportunity to do it, even though it would be a perfect piece of policy for him. Would check all the boxes: unity, bipartisanship, common sense, kitchen table issue, build back better, closing the gap between rural and urban America, etc.

The problem was he actually wanted to work with trump on something.

Not victim blaming at all. If the 87:3 ratio holds for all the rioters, not merely those who were arrested, citizens of Minneapolis burned down their own city. It's not terrorism. It's a riot. That being said, some $117 million were paid to victims after the LA riots. The way it was structured left the state out of the payment loop, and directly paid out to victims. I'd probably be willing to consider something similar, if that's the case you're making.

Your answers are mostly good, but do ignore the refusal of the Mayor to request or accept federal assistance. That delay probably allowed for double or triple the damage to be done. The inability to hold more looters and rioters accountable is also a severe failure. That being said, I'm not particularly averse to a payout to specific victims directly, cutting out the state/city from being middlemen. Some concerns I'd express prior to payout would be simply: Is it over? Like, we've been seeing a lot of news out of Minneapolis about crime wave surges, loss of a large chunk of law enforcement, a willingness to cave and abolish law enforcement entirely... There are still active protests, with protestors demanding that all charges be dropped against all rioters from the violent riots that burned down the city. If 9 or 10 figures is invested towards helping the victims of the riots. Will it all just get burned down too?

I'm also happy Texas and Alaska are getting aid, and agree the politicization is stupid. I only hope that other states that've been heavily impacted by the storms with hundreds of thousands of people without power also receive relief. Not a question of red or blue. Just people.

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Feb 17 2021 10:19pm

This. The roads in the US are worse than Belgium, and that's saying something.

If there is one sector my country does well, I'd have to say infrastructure. For most urbanized areas we could be a great example.

Ted Cruz had the right idea, if you are cold, just fly to Cancun. Teddy leads by example, a true GOP hero.

infrastructure repairs are the most missed out on bipartisan effort in the last few decades and perhaps the greatest victim to the polarization in local, state, and national government.

The right wing supports the workers, construction and the like, and is largely supported by the unions that operate such workers. but spending on these types of upgrades can be painted as fiscally irresponsible.

The left knows these unions arent going to support them, and that blue collar workers generally arent supporting them, and so chooses to divert funds to social programs rather than infrastructure upgrades over and over.

in an apolitical sense also, the system of bidding for contracts has led to 2 issues. exorbitant price gauging that makes upgrades untenable, and unmet timelines which leaves towns and states unwilling to greenlight projects in fear that upgrades may drag on for an unbelievable time.

i know many people in the trade, and its not uncommon for companies to move workers around from project to project after "cleaning up time". essentially leaving roads in poor shape, rather than finishing the job, in a scheme to run up job hours on open ended contracts. scrape away the road one day, one day of clean up, move to next site. repeat. return to job site 1, black top, clean up, move to job site 2. repeat. return to job site 1, lay curb cement, clean up, repeat repeat repeat. as well as short handing crews to make jobs take more hours as workers are doing multiple tasks rather than clearing a job site in 1 sweep, and pushing beyond 8 hours to run up overtime costs.

its well known to anyone who works in the trade that foreman and bidders play this game with the publics money.

Biden doesn't care about Texas.