Sources: Jason Garrett agrees to five-year deal with Cowboys

[Auggie]

The Dallas Cowboys have reached an agreement with Jason Garrett on a five-year, $30 million deal to remain the team's head coach, according to league sources.

Defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli also received a three-year deal to remain in his position with the team, a league source confirmed to ESPN's Adam Caplan.

Garrett led the Cowboys to the playoffs this season for the first time since 2009 with a 12-4 regular-season record. The Cowboys won the NFC East and beat the Detroit Lions in the wild-card round before dropping a 26-21 decision to the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round Sunday.

Garrett took over as the Cowboys' interim coach in the middle of the 2010 season. He went 5-3 after a 1-7 start to the year brought an end to the Wade Phillips era.

http://espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/story/_/id/12162667/dallas-cowboys-head-coach-jason-garrett-reach-agreement-five-year-contract

[madinmaryland]

1. I love your sig line.. "Illiterate immigrants will vote". Is she referring to herself???

[Auggie]

2. I posted that sig line in disgust after the low-voter turnout

Bill Maher nailed it.

As insensitive as the remark is, I wish illiterate immigrants did vote -- we'd have more progressives in office.

It's a real Bachmann quote.

[JonLP24]

3. The thing that bugged me though

is he had a guest I can't remember her name but she wrote a book on being poor. She told Bill Maher that his admission that he uses marijuana is one most poor wouldn't make, at-least publicly.

As she was going over she was talking about working 1-2 jobs in an urban city riding public transportation finding to make it to the polls which is a difficulty for people in similar circumstances, this is why people who work in the public sector have better voter turn out than the private while CEO/manager positions have the highest while laborer professions have the lowest.

The turning around after that episode and saying that kind of bugs me. I wish people also factored the GOP's War on Voting when making these remarks. In 2008, Ohio had 33 days of early voting. Obama won 70% of the vote. Florida, same thing. Republicans made sure to significantly curtail that shit, I think they knocked it down to around 10 days of early voting. On Youtube in 2012, you can find a video of the people in Florida were trying to go to an early voting facility but the turnout was so high and it was understaffed and they end up locking the doors and people were chanting "Let us vote!". Curtailing early voting is just one of many things Republicans are doing.

CNN fails to mention Republicans cut down the early voting days by over half from 2008-2012

Officials reportedly locked voters out at 2 p.m., one hour after the early voting polls opened, causing the hundreds still in line outside to begin chanting, “Let us vote!”

<snip>
Elections officials reopened doors at 3 p.m., but refused to further extend early voting hours past 5 p.m. Patricia Mazzei of The Miami Herald tweeted that, with 15 minutes left to vote, the line outside the office was “about 500 people deep.”
http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/another-voting-debacle-florida-let-us-vo

on edit - more than likely an illegal immigrant would be stuck on an agricultural farm or some other type of work and would be unable to find the time to make it to the polls since minorities & poor already have significant turnout gaps from general to midterm elections.

[Auggie]

4. This turnout was historically low

36.4%, down from 40.9% in the 2010 midterms and the lowest since the 1942 elections, when just 33.9% of voters turned out, though that election came during the middle of World War II ... The states with the lowest turnout were Indiana (28%), Texas (28.5%), Utah (28.8%), Tennessee (29.1%), New York (29.5%), Mississippi (29.7%), Oklahoma (29.8%), New Jersey (30.4%) and West Virginia and Nevada (31.8%). Indiana and Utah had no Senate or gubernatorial elections and the others all had races for at least one of the posts, but they were not considered competitive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_elections,_2014

[JonLP24]

5. Indicative of the GOP's success in its War on Voting campaign

In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting next year

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-gop-war-on-voting-20110830#ixzz3Ood2w1pC

We should be out the fighting for policies that it make it easier to vote.

[Auggie]

6. I vote for locking this thread

This is Sports, after all.

[JonLP24]

7. LOL

There was something I wanted to add but I was hoping for a reply.

In midterms, there is a lot "wasted vote" mindset which would be a factor too because of gerrymandering & state politics. It still exists in general elections like a voter may not vote in New York because Obama will still win anyway -- I can especially see Utah having very low turnout because a Republican will win anyways. Democrats lost a 50/50 seat but I'm not sure how to judge the total votes in relation to the state & overall turnout, the votes were less than 100,000 from 2012 but I'm not sure how to judge that in relation to a typical because the district was created after the 2010 census. Still the point remains that I can see both Democrats & Republicans not voting in Utah because a Republican will win anyways.

I like Independent Redistricting in Arizona which is what the voters choose when it came up on the ballot aimed at being roughly equal in population but also with a focus on being competitive & fair to the interests of the communities under the district zone. Awhile ago the Commission's website was hacked shortly after the midterms which I think were some Republicans who weren't too happy about it because Democrats have a 5-4 seat advantage in the state.

[Auggie]

8. Turnout was low in California where there isn't supression. Dems lost the super majority.

Supression may contribute in red/purple states, but it's more than that -- apathy, laziness, ignorance, and the "wasted vote" mindset you mention. The state senate and assembly races affect us more directly than the congressional ones anyhow. By not voting in these "small" elections people are fucking themselves even worse ... just like the California Dems who didn't bother last November.

Let's discuss quarterbacks, okay?

[JonLP24]

9. I agree those are factors too

I'd just add--living in urban centers with lines & understaffed polling places, unable to make it to the polls because they work in the private sector, recently moved, had trouble understanding the registration, where to vote, voting options (this would effect younger), uncounted votes.

Native Houstonian Voter Purged From The Rolls, Not Offered Provisional Ballot
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/11/02/3587428/election%20-%202014%20-%20liveblog/#lbu%20-%201415127614

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/report/2014/10/29/99886/uncounted-votes

Hard to get people to care about the small elections, I doubt most of the voted themselves care about the small elections. The small elections I mostly don't vote on them on the ballot -- I live in the most conservative city 200,000+ (I think you live in one of the top 5 most liberal, DC #1). My small elections feature Republicans running unopposed for Republicans running against each other. I did vote for the other Mormon Republican running against Russell Pearce in my local state senate race. I didn't know the other guy's policies but Russell Pearce is one of the most openly racist politicians so that was enough. School board features charter school lovers running against each other. The other Republican (no Democrats are ever on the ballot for my city local district) I did vote for was moderate Scott Smith against the two other Republicans in the mayor race which was a win for Democrats (even though he wasn't a Democrat). If a voter only cared about the small elections here he'd probably wouldn't go to the votes, since there are no Democrats on the ballot -- it is that bad.