TBF, I've been voting here since 2003, realistically this election is as close as the last elections, Andrew Gillum almost won in 2018, under some really suspect results that nobody cared about after Gillum was busted with drugs in Miami of all places, not to get all conspiratorial, but really felt like a setup. Christ was fairly close to Desantis in 2022, Alex Sink was nowhere near close in 2014, and so on, it's usually a pretty tight race for governor and senator regardless of who's running, and there's always something interesting going on in Miami during each election.

Overall I don't want to just claim there's conspiracy here, but this place is super corrupt and struggling as much as they can to be as backwards as they can.

I'd leave if I could afford it and if my family would come, but when you have elderly parents, those mofos are stubborn about any kind of change in their daily lives, and then I have my older kids and the families they're married into.

There was a good video put out by AOC last night about how the speaker is voted for, based on that I think the answer is finding out who the caucus leaders are and getting their attention, because the voting basically comes down to all of the cliques of Congress/Senate getting together to decide who is speaker/Majority Leader, so we need to get in the ear of the leaders of those political cliques within the Democratic party, because based on AOCs responses, the cliques have the power and the smaller cliques and independents are on the outside looking in.

Change.org petitions aren't worth getting on our enemies radar for, they don't change anything, and even the media stopped paying attention to them, and that was the main thing they were worth.

Calling reps is better, but my reps are MAGA dirtbags, and most public leaders don't care about folks outside of their constituency calling them outside of the increases in call volume, Schumer and Jeffries know that we think they're shit, they're paid by AIPAC and others to not care, people should be calling the caucus leaderships, because some of them aren't compromised yet, and they're the ones voting for Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.

Ultimately we have to make noise while not having anymore platforms of our own, having government/politicians we don't trust, and journalists who are derelict in their duties. We still have an uphill battle to keep fighting.

Thanks for this, yeah central Florida also had massive flooding the days before the election as well, but Miami has been a hotbed of corruption since stealing the election for George Bush during the Brooks brothers riots.

But I will say this, my kids hang around a lot of people their own age and bring them around the house and family, it's amazing how many of these lil ignorant twits don't believe in space or the moon landing (we live where Cape Canaveral is and can watch launches all year around), as well as bad hot takes on so many other issues. I know the education has been destroyed here, but it's really bad, these kids are really dumb and too narcissistic/egotistical to change their minds when confronted with factual evidence. So the future is not so bright, and the people my age or older are also full of idiots who lived through major space related events here but are still sucked into the cult of conservative ignorance currently known as MAGA.

Loved the Culture and Children of Time series, can't wait to read the newest Children of Time book as well. I'm stuck on Surface Detail currently because the phone I pirate ebooks on died, but I was having trouble getting into the vibe of the book, but definitely looking forward to finishing the series.

Common suggestions from Reddit would be The Expanse series by James SA Corey, there's an incomplete Amazon show based on the series, but the books have a fantastic conclusion.

Another good one is John Scalzi's Old Man's War

Some more "pulpy" "mary-sue-ish" suggestions, the Honor Harrington universe books by David Weber, or Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series (also has cool spider aliens).

Peter F. Hamilton has the Commonwealth series, or you can go old school and read Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, both are really interesting.

Then there's the Hyperion Cantos for some really good mystery/sci-fi horror.

The Clone Republic by Joe Kent was pretty interesting but gets a bit Mary Sue-ish later in the series.

Vatta's War series by Elizabeth Moon, was pretty good as well, can be Mary Sue-ish, but overall pulled off most of the series well.

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is very similar to children of time in tone. Also Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson is a satire that is one of the original cyberpunk novels, and is a must read because it is unironically the blueprint for what tech bros like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Thiel want the world to look like (it ain't pretty so arm yourself with knowledge). Neuromancer by William Gibson and it's sequels are the other original cyberpunk, Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan is similar and great, the Netflix series could have been better.

The Bobiverse is another outstanding suggestion, by Dennis E. Taylor, a real interesting and unique take on similar topics covered in Children of Time.

Ray Bradbury's Childhoods End fits here as well.

Red Rising and Dungeon Crawler Carl are both very popular modern suggestions that I haven't read myself.

There's a few series and books by the following who fit as well: CJ Cherryh, Larry Niven, Archur C Clarke.

Last but not least, Dune, Enders Game, Starship Troopers, and Operation Hail Mary all fit as well.

Good luck and happy reading.

Where I live in Florida and FL overall has been feeling like this lately, but hey we got our first black governor (MAGA, not even from Florida, he's from Brooklyn, expunged conviction for felony fraud, Born again Christian after having a conversation with God while working at a cracker barrel at 21, who's wife is a Mom's for Liberty Nazi and a charter schools grifter), yay!

All I know is Jeffries and Schumer ain't it, until the Dems replace them everything is still in jeopardy.

Jeffries is literally buddies with Kushner, a leading AIPAC donation taker, and also beholden to weird Nazi tech bro Peter Thiel, throw the whole dude away.

Apologies then I misinterpreted your reply.

Honestly as far as forcing parents, we have to do the hard thing, take it by a case by case basis, force the required classes and practices, then monitor those that are suspect based on how they handled those classes and trainings and whatnot. By monitoring I mean drop by visits, interviews with the family and those community members that interact with the children, as well as social services visits to discuss services and programs.

And on the flip side, we increase corruption and bias reviews on the schools, police, social services to ensure fairness and equality, because we need protectios from them as well. We would also want to have a more straightforward and streamlined appeals process for unfavorable judgements in these instances as well, to ensure the kids aren't separated from family or removed from the abusive families as soon as possible.

"To prevent terrorism we'll become terrorists, genius!"

Be Fn Fr, there is no way the state takes parental rights away from everyone completely, that just doesn't seem right.

I agress on some of your points but you're laying out some pretty extreme hot takes.

The parents should be involved, the parents should be forced into parenting, education and child psychology classes, the parents should be accountable for their little shit heads if they do things that warrant accountability. Sex Ed should be mandatory, condoms readily available in Junior High on up, school lunches should be free. Daycare/aftercare should also be free and include free snack/dinner.

Schools need to do better with mandatory reporting as well, right now they either report everything and it seems like an extension of bullying, or nothing and it also feels like an extension of bullying, same with police and the courts. Mandatory reporting is how we keep an eye on kids for abuse, but at times from a parents perspective, it just feels like another way you're being fucked with by society.

There a lot of different stuff at play that we can do better or differently, but it goes back to the saying "it takes a village to raise a child" basically we're all a team in raising this lil crotch goblin, and the parents are the primary members of that team they have to be involved and with the understanding of what is expected of them, then the rest of society that is involved is the rest of the team, and hopefully that yields a promising young adult.

"AIPAC says no..."

"Do you like that on your face?"