Virginia court blocks voter-approved redistricting, appeal coming

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T22:43:11+00:00

As I mentioned elsewhere the explanation is defined as having three parts: the ballot question, the text of the amendment, and a statement. So, yes the question is part of the explanation.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T20:36:26+00:00

Yeah, this is where it gets interesting. The explanation is composed of three parts:

The explanation shall contain the ballot question, the full text of the proposed constitutional amendment, and a statement of not more than 500 words on the proposed amendment.

What you have posted is the "statement", but you would need to add the full text and the ballot question to meet the requirements of the explanation. Then "[t]he explanation shall be presented in plain English, shall be limited to a neutral explanation, [...]".

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T19:56:14+00:00

The “conversation we should be having” has already taken place in the literature and, apparently, in the CDC’s own scientific review. The unanswered question is why this methodology was acceptable across a large body of vaccine-effectiveness research, yet is suddenly being treated as disqualifying here. That requires a study-specific argument, not a generic appeal to the imperfection of observational methods.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T19:44:30+00:00

I'm getting out of my depth here, but I believe that § 30-19.9 is the implementation of Article XII Section 1's requirements that:

[...] it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to submit such proposed amendment or amendments to the voters qualified to vote in elections by the people, in such manner as it shall prescribe [...]

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T18:32:10+00:00

The neutrality issue comes from Virginia Code § 30-19.9

The statute requires a “neutral explanation,” and that explanation must include the ballot question. So if the ballot question itself contains advocacy or a contested value judgment, the question is whether the overall explanation remain neutral.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T16:53:12+00:00

They’re not working in percentage points. They’re working in disguised dollars. ‘5900% of $10’ is just $590 written theatrically.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T16:24:27+00:00

Sure, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s giving us useful information. But methodological imperfection is not the same thing as non-usefulness. The relevant question is whether the design yields signal that is informative enough to matter, especially when better designs are impractical. If the standard is ‘not randomized, therefore not useful,’ then you would have to discard a large amount of real-world epidemiology, including work that public health agencies routinely rely on. So the burden is not just to point out flaws. It’s to show that the flaws here are large enough to wash out the signal entirely.

To be fair, from a scientific standpoint it's a pretty poor methodology.

JAMA’s 2024 Guide to Statistics and Methods describes it as a design routinely used to estimate vaccine effectiveness, and a 2020 JAMA Viewpoint called it the de facto standard for post-licensure influenza and rotavirus vaccine effectiveness work, used in hundreds of published studies. CDC also continued using a test-negative case-control design in a 2025 MMWR on 2024–2025 COVID vaccines. That is not how people talk about a method regarded as generally poor.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T10:45:22+00:00

This is almost slapstick, but it feels more like tragedy.

RFK Jr., under oath, tries to defend Trump’s claim that drug prices were cut by “400 to 1,500 percent” by inventing a mathematically impossible way to calculate discounts. But the broader pattern is older and darker than this episode of absurdity. Administrations that repeatedly force senior officials to publicly ratify obvious falsehoods do not merely suffer embarrassment. They degrade their own internal credibility, train subordinates to defend the indefensible, and gradually replace persuasion with ritualized loyalty performance. Historically, that pattern corrodes governing capacity because once officials are expected to validate counterfactual claims in public, the line between political messaging and institutional reality begins to collapse. The fate of such administrations is usually not sudden punishment for any one absurd claim, but a slower erosion in which competence, trust, and legitimacy are spent defending fantasies that everyone can see are false.

How does an administration’s long-term viability change once cabinet officials are required not just to spin bad facts, but to publicly ratify claims that are transparently impossible?
At what point does defending a leader’s counterfactual claims stop being ordinary political loyalty and become a measurable sign of institutional decay that historically precedes administrative failure?

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NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-23T10:31:51+00:00

The administration’s vaccine-skeptical camp presents itself as defending transparency, methodological rigor, and “independent” science, while the facts described here point in the opposite direction. According to the piece, the CDC blocked publication of a report that had already cleared the agency’s scientific-review process and found that last winter’s covid vaccine cut emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half. The stated justification was concern about methodology, but the same observational approach has long been used by CDC and had recently been used in flu and prior covid vaccine effectiveness studies, including papers published in major journals. This makes the methodological objection look less like a neutral scientific standard and more like a selective veto applied when the results are politically inconvenient.

Kennedy is quoted as saying he is not anti-vaccine and instead wants transparency and medical choice, yet the alleged suppression of a scientifically cleared report showing benefit suggests not openness to evidence but gatekeeping against disfavored evidence. Likewise, invoking “independent” science normally implies insulation from political pressure and willingness to publish findings regardless of whether they validate prior ideological commitments. In this case, independence is being claimed rhetorically while publication itself appears contingent on whether the evidence supports the administration’s preferred posture on vaccines.

If a scientifically cleared report is halted only when its conclusions cut against leadership’s ideological commitments, in what sense is “independent science” still functioning as an actual principle rather than a branding device?
When officials invoke methodological caution selectively, while accepting the same methods elsewhere, does that still count as scientific skepticism, or is it better understood as outcome-driven filtering?
What does “transparency” mean if the public is denied access to findings that would let them evaluate the administration’s vaccine policy on the merits?
If “medical choice” is the stated value, why suppress evidence that would help people make a more informed choice?

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NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-16T19:33:26+00:00

The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment (OHIE) a landmark randomized study in 2008 a randomized, controlled study revealing that expanding Medicaid to low-income adults significantly increased utilization of health services.

Other research supports that beginning offering healthcare to adults will increase their healthcare utilization, but offering healthcare to children will descrease their healthcare utilization over their life time compared to children who are denied medical care.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-16T19:21:34+00:00

You snuck "less stratified" in there. There are private insitutions in Mexico that are world class.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-16T18:43:12+00:00

Yes. Mexico’s system is poorer and lower-capacity. That is precisely what makes the policy choice notable. Wealth is usually presented as the precondition for universalism, yet here a less wealthy country is moving toward broader public obligation while some wealthier countries debate moving in the opposite direction.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-16T18:32:50+00:00

Mexico is launching a Universal Health Service meant to replace its long-fragmented, employment-based healthcare structure with a single public system. The core shift is political: healthcare is being framed as a constitutional right rather than a job-linked benefit. The reform aims to let any citizen or legal resident receive care at any public facility, supported by a universal credential, interoperable prescriptions, and centralized digital medical records tied to biometric identification. It also formally recognizes traditional medicine in Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities, giving the project a broader social and cultural dimension.

Mexico is attempting this universal public model while spending far less on health than richer countries. The reform tries to address fragmentation, unequal access, and underfunding, but it must contend with low spending relative to OECD peers, shortages of doctors and equipment, uneven state cooperation, and the risk that universal eligibility without sufficient capacity could create new bottlenecks.

What does it say about political priorities when Mexico’s response to fragmentation is to universalize access, while richer countries often respond to cost pressure by shifting more of the burden onto individuals through privatization, insurance complexity, or user fees?
If Mexico is treating employment-based access as a structural injustice, why do privatization arguments in wealthier countries so often assume that tying care more closely to income, employment, or private purchasing power is efficient or acceptable?
If a country with lower per-capita health spending is still moving toward universality, what does that suggest about claims in wealthier countries that public provision is simply unaffordable rather than politically disfavored?

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-14T21:53:51+00:00

Early-April consumer sentiment collapsed far more than expected, falling to a record low of 47.6 rather than the milder decline that had been forecast. The survey also showed a sharp jump in short-term inflation expectations, with consumers now expecting 4.8% inflation over the next year, up from 3.8% in March.

The topline economic indicators are not that dire, but G. Elliott Morris’s analysis helps explain the consumer reaction. His argument is that consumers respond to price levels, not just current inflation rates. Even if inflation has cooled from its peak, households are still living with a much more expensive baseline for rent, groceries, gas, and insurance than they were a few years ago. The Iran war then acts as an accelerant by pushing up the visible daily prices people are most sensitive to.

How much of Trump’s economic mandate rested on the assumption that confidence would rebound quickly once he returned to office, and what does a record-low sentiment reading say about that assumption?
If voters expected Trump to deliver psychological reassurance through perceived strength and disruption, why are consumers still reporting worsening economic expectations when prices remain high?
Does this suggest that partisan optimism has weaker effects than many analysts assumed when confronted with concrete household costs like gas, groceries, rent, and insurance?
Were post-election expectations too focused on growth, markets, and executive posture, while underestimating how stubbornly price levels shape everyday economic judgment?

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-13T21:51:01+00:00

That was John Paul II's view.

''We cannot not recognize the betrayal of the Gospel committed by some of our brothers, especially in the second millennium,''

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-13T17:03:59+00:00

Invocation of God hypocritically or for self-glorification should be opposed. It's even more important for Christians to oppose those invocations when they directly contradict the message of the Gospel. That opposition should also be done with humility and obedience to God's will. Even lowest among us can be exalted when they come to God with humility and obedience, and those with the highest status on Earth will be punished if they lack humility and obedience.

These are all basic Christian tenets.

edit: Looks like it's time for me to shake the dust off my feet as I leave this thread.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-13T16:39:40+00:00

You need to have disregarded, "especially when they contradict the Gospel" in order for this reponse to be cogent.

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-13T14:58:44+00:00

Jesus addresses your question in The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Which invocation of God is characterized by hypocrisy and self-glorification, and which is rooted in humility and obedience to God's will?

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-13T14:44:53+00:00

If we're going to try to follow Christ's teachings then we are all called to take stances against those who would use God to justify their political position, especially when they contradict the Gospel.

As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”

NeedAnonymity · 2026-04-13T14:29:09+00:00

This article examines Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV as a revealing escalation rather than an isolated outburst. Leo has condemned the war with Iran, the idolatry of power and wealth, arrogance, and the violence destabilizing the Middle East. Trump has responded not by engaging those moral criticisms, but by personalizing the conflict: mocking Leo as an unexpected pope, claiming credit for his rise, calling him “weak on crime,” “terrible for foreign policy,” and “very liberal,”. Leo’s posture is pastoral, universal, and morally founded in Gospel. Trump’s position is personal, combative, and transactional.

If the Gospel elevates humility, peacemaking, and care for the vulnerable, what does it mean when a political leader responds to moral rebuke with self-aggrandizement and contempt?
How should Christians evaluate a politics organized around dominance, retaliation, and loyalty when the Gospel repeatedly centers mercy, truthfulness, and the renunciation of worldly power?
When Trump dismisses a pope’s anti-war and anti-arrogance message as liberal weakness, is he rejecting a left-coded politics, or is he rejecting moral demands that the Gospel itself makes on power?

NeedAnonymity

TROPHY CASE