Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
But... basic forms of socialism are a good thing. It brought you Medicaid and Medicare and unemployment benefits and some semblance of parental leave and sick leave. it brought you workers' rights, fair wages, paid days off, weekends.

Does this just boil down to lack of historical knowledge, and no appreciation of how far we've come from 19th century working conditions?

The USA is the worst wealthy country in the world when it comes to social safety nets. Social safety nets bring up everyone's standards of living, not just the poor's standards of living. Please don't keep us at the bottom.

"Social safety nets bring up everyone's standards of living, not just the poor's" I don't understand this. Can you explain it?

Anonymous wrote:Would you say that DC is socialist too? MoCo is just an extension of DC in terms of mindset. Don't know why people think there's some kind of Iron Curtain between NHave/East-West highway and the Potomac River.

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, I think MoCo is beyond saving. Its gradual stagnation and decline relative to NoVa has been happening for so long now that MoCo officials no longer care about remaining competitive. Worse, MoCo leaders have adopted such an insular and narrow perspective that the county has become a problem for the state and the region. This latest example over 270 and 495 is a prime example.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Marc Elrich is just a symptom. The people that elected him are the disease.

If you want to cure MoCo you either have to get those people to use their brains, or flood the county with moderates or conservatives. And neither of those things is going to happen.

So I’ll enjoy watching the county spiral downwards.

WRONG

Currently conservatives want the US to turn into a fascist country with KING Trump.

Conservatives want a criminal in office. They are ok with Congressmen knowingly lying to the American people to stand with Russia.

They stand with garbage.

Anonymous wrote:
But... basic forms of socialism are a good thing. It brought you Medicaid and Medicare and unemployment benefits and some semblance of parental leave and sick leave. it brought you workers' rights, fair wages, paid days off, weekends.

Does this just boil down to lack of historical knowledge, and no appreciation of how far we've come from 19th century working conditions?

The USA is the worst wealthy country in the world when it comes to social safety nets. Social safety nets bring up everyone's standards of living, not just the poor's standards of living. Please don't keep us at the bottom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's not socialism, but the whatever you call it, the county is being run into the ground and as a life-long resident, it's sad. The county is so anti-business that they can't even fill existing office parks -- look at Rock Spring over by Montgomery Mall and how that's all being converted to housing or nursing homes (I'm not making this up -- the Marriott headquarters will be torn down in favor of an old folks home!).

The problem is most of the county is run by people from Takoma Park/Silver Spring, and they don't represent the views of the county overall. Even the at-large council members are from that area. There was an effort on the last ballot to change it so the 9 council members each represent a specific district. That was the result of people gathering tens of thousands of signatures to put it on the ballot. What happened? The Council got scared, and added _their own_ question to the ballot and placed it before this one, and the Council's version would just add more district-specific seats, thus enlarging the council, and keeping all at-large seats in place. That won -- first on the ballot and it probably confused voters. If the Council really cared about that, why did they wait only until _the people_ added a ballot question to react?

Anyway, I think a realistic solution is open primaries. Right now, whoever wins the D primary wins the general. Most voters don't vote in the primaries, so a candidate just needs to cater to one fringe group that votes heavily, to win in the primary. That's how Elrich did it -- he beat Blair by less than 100 votes, among a sea of moderates. The moderate vote was spread across a few candidates, so Elrich just courted 1-2 ultra-progressive votes and swept up all those votes.

If we had an open primary, then you'd end up with 2 (D) candidates on the general ballot and at least one is likely to be moderate.

It's justifiable because 1/3 of registered voters in MoCo are indepdendents, and all candidates can join in taxpayer-funded campaign financing. That means you could have R and D candidates both receiving your money, but no way to vote for/against them because primaries are closed.

Next time you're in Bethesda, drive by the Bethesda (Morella) library. It's named after Connie Morella, a moderate _Republican_ congressional representative. Imagine that -- we used to elect Republicans to office in this area!

Office parks are dead. Marriott is building a new HQ in Bethesda to give up it's office park.

Office parks are only dead in Montgomery County because we are losing jobs. I seriously recommend that you get off your bike, rent a car and go drive out along 66 out to Leesburg. You have no idea what’s going on outside of your own little world.

Maybe you meant the Dulles Toll Road/Greenway? 66 will not take you to Leesburg or anywhere in Loudoun. It runs through Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William, and Fauquier counties on the way to Front Royal.

Marriott didn't move there though.

OMG, you are dumb. The state and county had to bribe Marriott to stay. Over $60 million in direct subsidies.

Montgomery County only has two Fortune 500 companies that we are so desperate to keep that we will bribe them to stay. Now go check how many are HQ’d in NoVA without bribes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's not socialism, but the whatever you call it, the county is being run into the ground and as a life-long resident, it's sad. The county is so anti-business that they can't even fill existing office parks -- look at Rock Spring over by Montgomery Mall and how that's all being converted to housing or nursing homes (I'm not making this up -- the Marriott headquarters will be torn down in favor of an old folks home!).

The problem is most of the county is run by people from Takoma Park/Silver Spring, and they don't represent the views of the county overall. Even the at-large council members are from that area. There was an effort on the last ballot to change it so the 9 council members each represent a specific district. That was the result of people gathering tens of thousands of signatures to put it on the ballot. What happened? The Council got scared, and added _their own_ question to the ballot and placed it before this one, and the Council's version would just add more district-specific seats, thus enlarging the council, and keeping all at-large seats in place. That won -- first on the ballot and it probably confused voters. If the Council really cared about that, why did they wait only until _the people_ added a ballot question to react?

Anyway, I think a realistic solution is open primaries. Right now, whoever wins the D primary wins the general. Most voters don't vote in the primaries, so a candidate just needs to cater to one fringe group that votes heavily, to win in the primary. That's how Elrich did it -- he beat Blair by less than 100 votes, among a sea of moderates. The moderate vote was spread across a few candidates, so Elrich just courted 1-2 ultra-progressive votes and swept up all those votes.

If we had an open primary, then you'd end up with 2 (D) candidates on the general ballot and at least one is likely to be moderate.

It's justifiable because 1/3 of registered voters in MoCo are indepdendents, and all candidates can join in taxpayer-funded campaign financing. That means you could have R and D candidates both receiving your money, but no way to vote for/against them because primaries are closed.

Next time you're in Bethesda, drive by the Bethesda (Morella) library. It's named after Connie Morella, a moderate _Republican_ congressional representative. Imagine that -- we used to elect Republicans to office in this area!

Office parks are dead. Marriott is building a new HQ in Bethesda to give up it's office park.

Office parks are only dead in Montgomery County because we are losing jobs. I seriously recommend that you get off your bike, rent a car and go drive out along 66 out to Leesburg. You have no idea what’s going on outside of your own little world.

Maybe you meant the Dulles Toll Road/Greenway? 66 will not take you to Leesburg or anywhere in Loudoun. It runs through Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William, and Fauquier counties on the way to Front Royal.

Marriott didn't move there though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe it's not socialism, but the whatever you call it, the county is being run into the ground and as a life-long resident, it's sad. The county is so anti-business that they can't even fill existing office parks -- look at Rock Spring over by Montgomery Mall and how that's all being converted to housing or nursing homes (I'm not making this up -- the Marriott headquarters will be torn down in favor of an old folks home!).

The problem is most of the county is run by people from Takoma Park/Silver Spring, and they don't represent the views of the county overall. Even the at-large council members are from that area. There was an effort on the last ballot to change it so the 9 council members each represent a specific district. That was the result of people gathering tens of thousands of signatures to put it on the ballot. What happened? The Council got scared, and added _their own_ question to the ballot and placed it before this one, and the Council's version would just add more district-specific seats, thus enlarging the council, and keeping all at-large seats in place. That won -- first on the ballot and it probably confused voters. If the Council really cared about that, why did they wait only until _the people_ added a ballot question to react?

Anyway, I think a realistic solution is open primaries. Right now, whoever wins the D primary wins the general. Most voters don't vote in the primaries, so a candidate just needs to cater to one fringe group that votes heavily, to win in the primary. That's how Elrich did it -- he beat Blair by less than 100 votes, among a sea of moderates. The moderate vote was spread across a few candidates, so Elrich just courted 1-2 ultra-progressive votes and swept up all those votes.

If we had an open primary, then you'd end up with 2 (D) candidates on the general ballot and at least one is likely to be moderate.

It's justifiable because 1/3 of registered voters in MoCo are indepdendents, and all candidates can join in taxpayer-funded campaign financing. That means you could have R and D candidates both receiving your money, but no way to vote for/against them because primaries are closed.

Next time you're in Bethesda, drive by the Bethesda (Morella) library. It's named after Connie Morella, a moderate _Republican_ congressional representative. Imagine that -- we used to elect Republicans to office in this area!

Office parks are dead. Marriott is building a new HQ in Bethesda to give up it's office park.

Office parks are only dead in Montgomery County because we are losing jobs. I seriously recommend that you get off your bike, rent a car and go drive out along 66 out to Leesburg. You have no idea what’s going on outside of your own little world.

Maybe you meant the Dulles Toll Road/Greenway? 66 will not take you to Leesburg or anywhere in Loudoun. It runs through Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William, and Fauquier counties on the way to Front Royal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ex Republican living in MOCO.

I nor any of my neighbors will never ever vote for another Republican again.

Yes, I can speak for them as we just had a neighborhood meeting and had this very discussion.

Never going to risk any elected officials being Trumpers again.

While we may not be a large voting block our reaches in the community are far and wide.

NEVER AGAIN.

So if given the choice between a sane, moderate, Hogan-type Republican or someone like Comrade Elrich, who loves Venezuela and Cuba (on the record, he does!), you choose the Marxist who literally endorses Communism?

What is happening to MoCo is exactly what has happened in Communist countries, except (thankfully) people can just leave for Virginia or Frederick County, instead of risking their lives to defect or being sent to the gulags.

Anonymous wrote:Ex Republican living in MOCO.

I nor any of my neighbors will never ever vote for another Republican again.

Yes, I can speak for them as we just had a neighborhood meeting and had this very discussion.

Never going to risk any elected officials being Trumpers again.

While we may not be a large voting block our reaches in the community are far and wide.

NEVER AGAIN.