Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 15, 2012

Don’t forget the DeVry Devils.

..and how about them ITT Tech T-Rexes

Or the West Coast Weevils (but only if they can get off work for a game…)

But, wait, “Lurkers?” “Trolls?” isn’t proposing they can play on a football team assuming they’re capable of doing things in RL?

RL = red liquid?

RL = restless linkage?

RL = responsible lawlessness?

This is totally over my head. How does Trudeau keep up with this youth lingo?

“real life,” though some of us prefer “afk” (away from keyboard)

Grandchildren, more likely.

DTPi, I never got back to your comment about out-of-state-students and convicted child rapists. You wrote,“They’re both issues in the news and in the public consciousness. They’re both issues that concern who has the right to vote. Do out-of-state students get the right to vote “en locus” (at or near the school they attend)? Do convicted felons who have served their time or are out on parole get the right to vote? Is that a states-rights issue? Does each separate state legislature get to decide? Or must the U.S.Congress pass a law dealing with the issue? Suppose a convicted felon has served every minute of his do-the-crime-do-the-time sentence get to vote? Ever? Anywhere? Or only in a designated polling place with proper protections for the real citizens round about? Does this include only convicted felons who have served all of their time? Or can the proposed legislation allow convicted child rapists who have served all of their prison time and have thus “paid their debt to society” to vote?”I’m not familiar with all the competing “jurisdictional spheres” in the US so I’m walking on thin ice. My question was more about determining the eligibility (or not) of a prespective voter at the voting booth. I know of somebody who was told that he would forfeit his US citizenship if he voted in a Canadian election. He decided to change his citizenship but if he were to move back to the US (say, spend five month of the year in Florida to get out of the cold) and show up at a polling station with his US birth certificate, would he be allowed to vote? I would think not. As to the out-of-state students, allowing them to vote “en locus” may be convenient for the students, but may be a problem for small college towns where the student body can overwhelm the local population. This can cause problems when local initiatives are on the ballot (representation without taxation?)

In a conversation I was having with an American ex pat a couple of nights ago, I understood that the US no longer required someone taking up another citizenship to renounce their US one. If that is true, note that in some countries (e.g. Australia) voting is mandatory.

In forty years I have never missed a vote for public office where I was eligible to cast a ballot, but today was tricky. The UK government is imposing US-style Police Commissioners on us, and the vote was today. Turnout is going to be appalling, I don’t know anyone who thinks it is a good idea. After due consideration, I went along this morning and spoilt my ballot in person, and in protest – I’d urge others to do the same.

GT had kids who are in 20’s and 30’s in years.

don’t worry, we are entering a Republican states’ rights era. Jim Crow soon will be everywhere the Republican are to limit voting to rich white male property owners, or the closest thing to that.

all those technicalities, please. keep it simple, like the Republican overlords who own us. lol. voting for non white males? get real, the makers, not the takers.

I think this idea of a paid-player league for the for-profit schools is frighteningly possible. They could rent existing venues wherever they liked and possibly make a go of it!

That’s pretty nasty, to talk about “for profits” that way!

@AstolatYes, the US tacitly allows dual citizenship.

This is a crack-up. I like the other for-profit team names other have come up with too.

Pretty weird the things passed around on the Internet.

The problem with people rejecting the concept that some felons have “served their debt to society” is that many go in for things like hurting someone while drunk or the like. That is bad judgement, but it does not necessarily make him a lifelong criminal.Some people convicted of a sex crime are just late bloomers paying attention to someone much more experienced and younger than they. This never turns out well, but he is not always a child predator for life. You have to take these people one at a time.

Once again you show your normal insensitivity and crudeness in a pathetic attempt at political humor. I’m sure you use the “r” word all the time, as, we have no doubt, the “n” word.I don’t often find things offensive but I do find your feeble attempt at wit something to be flagged !

My comment about voter suppression yesterday was in regard to someone else’s comment who seemed to imply that voter suppression is not really an issue, due to the fact that Obama won. I am grateful that Obama won, however, this does not mean that voter suppression is not an issue. There are also many conservatives who try to argue that climate change is not an issue due to the fact that we sometimes have snowstorms. This is also not true.

Yesterday, I saw where Bill Maher stated that we need to stop reacting to stupid things that conservatives say. This may be true. People like Santorum, Palin, Perry, W, Gingrich, Bachmann, Cain, Romney, Ryan, Limbaugh and many others have dominated the conversation for too long. Unfortunately, since the right does have a following, we do have to respond at times. Election or not, there will continue to be a discourse among our leaders and their followers.

Obviously, Obama represents many among us in the US. In a few years, we will have a majority minority in the US. The GOP seems to want to go back to a time which never existed, a “gentler” time before the civil rights and women’s rights era. In the new era of communication, the GOP will not get away with the usual attempts to fracture the Democratic Party constituents, which includes a large and varied group of people.

“Obama, with his complicated background and his third culture dislocation leading to a self-created identity, is the perfect figurehead for a broken family party that is as foreign to itself as it is to us.”

The Obama family is not broken. It consists of father Barack, mother Michelle, daughter Sasha now at 14 years old and Malia at 11. Nor is there any evidence that Barack has been messing around on Michelle while presiding in the most powerful office in the world. (Power attracts certain kinds of women.)

Compare this to the Newt Gingrich family or the David Petraeus family.

For Barack — a Christian — to have come from a broken background (as is described above, in a hateful and racist manner) and yet to have turned out as well as he has is a testament and an inspiration to us Americans all.

Voting rights for felons falls within the jurisdiction of the states and territories but that doesn’t mean that an extreme exclusionary rule could not be found to violate the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights. As for the eligibility of what various commenters refer to as “out of state students,” their eligibility is determined by the same standards that apply to any newcomer to a state. Each state has a specified cut-off date for registering to vote; if one is a resident on that date, he’s eligible to vote in that forthcoming election unless he’s moved out by then. Requiring extended residence for eligibility to vote violates the Constitution and so does any requirement of a commitment to remain a resident beyond the date of election. It’s interesting that there’s controversy about students but not about other travelers, such as oil rig workers in the Dakotas. The difference, of course, is that the former, unlike perhaps the latter, tend to vote towards the left. So, to conservatives, permitting students to vote willy-nilly is anathema.

Thanks for putting it so succintly; I was going to say that drug laws in general, and depriving ex-cons of the right to vote (see FL, where Charlie Crist’s plan to let them vote was cancelled by Rick Scott asap, and who should be a felon himself) are all plans to prevent minorities and the poor from voting at all. As for dook’s question on voting eligibility, as far as the GOP goes, anyone who votes Democratic (NOT Democrat) should be ineligible.And then we have the party of “family values”; how many are on second, third, or fourth marriages, have mistresses, or are just on the down-low? Plenty of fractured families there…

My dream match up is the College of Cardinals v the Electoral College.

“To put it simply to vote is a right not a privilege.”

It is a defined and contexted right. A one-year-old (my grandson is one year old) may have the right to vote as a born citizen, but he cannot exercise that right right now.

Similarly, people can lose their right to vote, even as they can lose their very citizenship. “The man without a country” lost his citizenship. Traitors, such as Benedict Arnold, can lose their citizenship — and with it their right to vote.

When considering whether or not to give felons-in-prison the right to vote in prison, we cannot just say, well, in some other countries they have the right to vote while in prison. That won’t cut it with the American electorate.

We have to start where we are — they are stripped of such rights by a judge while imprisoned — and go from there. A nation-wide campaign would be a place to start. That could cut it with the American electorate, though it is not guaranteed to.

When reciting the alphabet, to get from A to Z, you have to go through all the other letters.

“The comics are an appropriate place for a nobody to try to sound like a somebody ….”

Just the tiniest teensiest bit jealous of Garry Trudeau’s obvious genius, courage-against-oppression, success at speaking truth to power, ultimate influence and resultant wealth are we?

I think he’s trying to insult dook, which is not possible, considering how much more intelligent dook is.

I must’ve missed yesterdays comment arc about felons voting, As a POW in the war on marijuana I was disenfranchise from ‘76 – ’92 For selling less than $50 worth of marijuana. I have noted before their marijuana prohibition was rooted in the Jim Crow laws, in fact it is one of the few relics that is still active today, and was promoted by Harry Anslinger the first director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). He warns of the perils of Mexican and Black marijuana smokers having sex with White women. montessoriteacher mentioned that Anslinger passed away in ’75, but I want to emphasize that his legacy lives on. I went to jail and 76, and those laws are still in effect today 36 years later. The election is over I do not understand why progressives do not criticize Obama for his regressive stance on these Jim Crow laws and why they don’t view the enforcement of those laws as voter suppression?

I was heartened by the number of state marijuana laws that were passed in this recent election and wonder how long will it take for Obama evolve? Looks like it’s more than just Rastafarians that oppose marijuana prohibition, the American people are fed up with it. Will the Obama administration respect the will of the people?

Cal Tech Concussers?

Internet Students could join fantasy teams.

I don’t think Obama can take on pot reform. As it took Nixon to go to China, it may take a conservative to take on pot reform.

I don’t disagree, with anything you said, well hardly anything, however, I was only trying to make a joke. Sometimes they work, and sometimes, not so much.

Don’t count on a republican to reform drug laws;too much money in private prisons, and too much voter suppresion to give up.

" the annual difference was $40,000,000,000."

Wow! that’s a lotta jack, inside. Bear Flag Republic, that has a nice ring. We need to have strict immigration laws though so we can keep you know who out, no Green Cards for the DEA. I want to work for the Bear Flag Ice. “Put a hold on that one.”

DTPi: You’re wrong, SCOTUS has held that a citizen of the US cannot be deprived of his/her citizenship unless it was obtained fraudulently, such as a false claim of paternity or residency period. “The Man Without a Country” story is no more than false sentimentalized patriotic BS and Aaron Burr renounced his US citizenship in an effort to establish another nation to the west of the original US.

I don’t know who will change the drug laws, but I don’t think it will be Obama. Perhaps Ron Paul? He claimed to have a libertarian point of view along those lines. Nixon was the first prez to visit Communist China after all those years of accusing others of being Communists in the US, so who knows? Ron Paul had a big following among young people, in part due to his libertarian views on drug laws.

@montessoriteacher who said:
“Voting needs to change. In US … We need, perhaps, an election week, rather than day.”
.
Aye!.Because the present state of things is outrageous, and been disgusting for years, yet nothing had been done to correct it: look at the military: the votes of many of them are not even taken into account! “Arrived too late!” If the postal service can’t handle it, then give it a month to receive all the absentee ballots and get them counted. With the present state of things convicts are more likely to vote and get their votes counted than our military. We ought to make sure that every military vote be taken into account!

I’m gonna finally speak up on the topic of the right to vote to be a “right”. Well, the right to freedom to walk around in this land is a right as well. Reference the Bill of Rights. And yet society deprives people who are legitimately found to be felons by a duly constituted “jury of peers” every work day, and even on weekends.

Now if society can deprive a person of this liberty, it can also deprive a person of the right to vote, which is if anything a lesser right. Legitimately.

For anybody who really, really, really wants to know: BCNU is a phonetic abbreviation (you don’t have to be hyper-elite to figure it out). AFK is un-phonetic (you have to be a member of the hyper-elite “in crowd” to know what it means).

“I’ve always thought “The Golden Bear Republic” sounded a little better.”

That’d be good, we could just rubber stamp Berkeley’s foreign policy but then Stanford would try to secede or pass embarrassing resolutions in the legislature.

Just think about it, we’d raise the profile of N America from 3 countries to 4 and we could have a delegation that gives long winded speeches at the UN like Fidel Castro, and send Human Right’s monitors to the remaining 49 states.

Night-Gaunt49: We don’t agree.