https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-hillsborough/active-investigation-shuts-down-brandon-blvd-in-both-directions

No injuries reported after shooting

BRANDON, Fla. — A shooter was arrested Thursday after a firefight with Hillsborough County deputies.

Part of Brandon Blvd. was shut down in both directions for much of the afternoon while the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office worked their investigation. The shootings happened around the 1 p.m. hour Thursday.

The sheriff's office says deputies were called to the report of shots fired at the Wash Up-Brandon car wash off Brandon Blvd. Sheriff Chad Chronister said deputies arrived within moments, and upon arrival, the sheriff's office says deputies witnessed Daniel Lighty, 35, firing a weapon.

The sheriff's office says deputies were called to the report of shots fired at the Wash Up-Brandon car wash off Brandon Blvd. Sheriff Chad Chronister said deputies arrived within moments, and upon arrival, the sheriff's office says deputies witnessed Daniel Lighty, 35, firing a weapon.

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He was taken into custody after he ran out of bullets. This is Florida, after all...


The police took care not to escalate during the incident, which has been described as a mental health crisis.


I never see reports on DU of police doing their job well. It creates an artificial and often racist view of the police. We have over 330 million people in this country. Those rare incidents that make the cable news are not the norm. Most incidents are like this one.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/us/schools-closed-fridays-remote-learning.html

DETROIT — Caitlin Reynolds, a single mother, was happy that her son, L.J., was finally settled into fourth grade after a rocky experience last year with remote learning.

Then, on Wednesday, Nov. 17, an announcement: Detroit public schools would close their classrooms every Friday in December. There would be virtual school only.

On Friday, a follow-up announcement: School was also canceled starting that Monday, for the entire week of Thanksgiving. This time, there would be no online option.

After a few months of relative calm, some public schools are going remote — or canceling classes entirely — for a day a week, or even for a couple of weeks, because of teacher burnout or staff shortages.

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This is a localized problem, but with the very low risk of kids in the classroom and the incredible disruption to working class parents Schools really need to rethink these policies.

Much like crime and inflation I really think democrats need to go on the offensive against school districts that are breaking the covenant of taking the kids on a regular schedule so parents (Often single mothers) can work,

This effects the most vulnerable in our society by far and I am afraid many are simply out of touch of the reality of the working class.

If we ignore the needs of the working class in America, we will lose them.

https://thetakeout.com/plant-based-meat-sales-are-starting-to-drop-1848131060

We’ve been keeping track of plant-based meat alternatives for a while now. This year, vegan chicken offerings have sprung up big time, and overall, the momentum has felt strong. But now, the Financial Times reports that sales of plant-based meat are starting to fall. This might come as a surprise given the wild amount of choices at grocery stores these days, but it turns out that variety might actually be part of the problem.

A data group called SPINS found that in the four weeks prior to October 3, sales of vegan meat substitutes dropped 1.8% as compared to 2020. There are several likely reasons for this (it’s been a complicated year, everyone). Not only have dining restrictions lifted in many areas, meaning a dip in grocery sales, but supply chain issues have also caused some store shelves to go empty for periods of time.

Maple Leaf Foods, a Canadian company that owns a plant-based protein brand called Green Leaf, along with Beyond Meat, logged weak sales over the past few weeks too. Maple Leaf CEO Michael McCain told analysts earlier this month, “In the past six months, unexpectedly, there has been a rapid deceleration in the category growth rates of plant-based protein.”

Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown thinks the weak sales are due to people being uninterested in healthier options (which certainly seems possible), along with people making fewer trips to the grocery store overall. Innovation doesn’t seem like it’s slowing down in the market, however. Some companies are taking a foray into 3D-printed whole cuts of vegan meat, and vegan fish seems like it’s still coming up in the world, too.

Just got off the phone with my friend who was in tears. Her rent is going up another $200 a month. Her rent is low for the area (1600) and she lives in a rural area but rents are up almost 30% in our town this year and they are not slowing down.

She is a single mother of two including a special needs child, but she makes too much for any government support. She looked around for another place to rent, but thier prices were even higher. In many cases, there is simply no room at the inn.

We talk about inflation, but there are two types of inflation. Homeowners have seen capital gains in the tens of thousands while their mortgage stays unchanged. Renters pay twice the average homeowner per month and have seen nothing but misery. It is a real divide.

Our area has a moratorium on building new apartments while the county catches up with schools and roads. Also, environmental groups are banning them as well as people concerned with the disappearing open spaces. So new housing of that type is not in the cards anytime soon. Meanwhile, the already built ones simply increase in price.

For the renter the inflation rate is not 6% it is closer to 25%. We need to keep that in mind.

There really are superpredators like Darrell E Brooks ( Waukesha Christmas parade massacre. Dozens of other assaults and rapes of children and young adults of color.)

And sometimes we need to take a serious look at a justice system that allows bail and early release for such individuals. The vast majority of crime is committed by very few people that destroy hundreds of lives each.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/22/democrats-are-pushing-tax-breaks-for-the-rich-theyll-cry-when-voters-punish-them

The last time Democrats held the presidency and Congress, the party spent its first year in power enriching big banks that had cratered the economy and then letting public money subsidize the Wall Street bonuses of their campaign donors. The spectacle gave Republicans a political bailout in the 2010 midterms, allowing them to depict themselves as anti-establishment populists challenging an elitist government.

Twelve years later, history is rhyming. Democrats were vaulted into office on popular promises to tax the wealthy, but they are now generating national headlines about their proposal to provide new tax breaks narrowly targeted to enrich their affluent blue-state donors – just as a new survey shows nearly two thirds of Americans see the party as “out of touch with the concerns of most people.” And now the Republican machine is gearing up to demagogue the issue in 2022.

The situation is like a storyline from Veep satirizing liberal elitism: As millions of voters are being crushed by health care costs and higher energy prices, and as Democratic lawmakers have abandoned a $15 minimum wage, Democratic leaders are pushing a regressive proposal to allow wealthy property owners to deduct more of their state and local taxes (SALT) from their federal taxes.

This initiative, which would provide almost no benefit to the working class, isn’t some small tweak. After Democrats gutted their wildly popular initiatives to expand Medicare and lower drug prices, the tax initiative has now become one of the most expensive provisions in President Joe Biden’s entire Build Back Better legislation.

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I know the issue is complicated but much as cancelling student debt is a giveaway to high income white woman. This is a giveaway to property owners that made a lot of money in house equity over the last few years.

It truly is tax breaks for "paper" millionaires.

I see constant promotion of ending cash bail, alternatives to the police and alternatives to incarceration. These are major think planks and policies of our party. They are promoted through books, speeches and the more progressive members of congress. They are celebrated here at DU with passionate screeds.

Then one of these misunderstood criminals does something criminal on tape and all of a sudden it is death penalty this, where were the police that and why was he out on bail?

So which is it. Do we get rid of cash bail, incarceration and defund the police. Or do we allow emotion to get in the way of social justice?

I am not saying which is the right answer, but it would be helpful if there was some sort of consistency. We can't cry racial justice one minute and shoot the shoplifters or no bail for someone beating his girlfriend nearly to death the next minute.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-05/pomona-schools-defunded-police-a-shooting-brings-them-back


Just four months ago, community activists celebrated a milestone decision in the Pomona Unified School District: The Board of Education defunded school police, removed officers from high schools, and brought in proctors trained to de-escalate tensions. But prompted in part by a recent shooting near a campus, the board has reversed course and brought back police, saying that student safety is paramount.

The unanimous vote during the Oct. 27 school board meeting came after a shooting near Pomona High School left a 12-year-old injured by broken glass and debris. The pressure from activists that led the board to eliminate funding for police and reimagine school safety in June gave way to new pressures from those who believe that the Pomona Police Department plays a crucial role in keeping schools safe.

“An incident such as this drives us, as leaders, to examine our practices and our protocols in caring for students and staff in regards to mental health, conflict mediation, emergency procedures, communication facilities and safety,” Supt. Richard Martinez said during an Oct. 20 meeting after the shooting.

The Pomona school board is not alone in its angst over school safety policies and policing that emerged after nationwide protests over the killing of Black people by police officers and evidence that police disproportionately target Black and Latino students. The Fremont Unified School District last November voted to discontinue its school resource officer program, only to restore the program by May.


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You can't learn in an unsafe environment. While not all schools need resource officers those that do should certainly have the option and funding available.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curriculum-guidelines.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20211105&instance_id=44676&nl=the-morning®i_id=126406904&segment_id=73603&te=1&user_id=60772750d12b15f85907c4e211fc21f6

Proposed guidelines in the state would de-emphasize calculus, reject the idea that some children are naturally gifted and build a connection to social justice. Critics say math shouldn’t be political.

If everything had gone according to plan, California would have approved new guidelines this month for math education in public schools.

But ever since a draft was opened for public comment in February, the recommendations have set off a fierce debate over not only how to teach math, but also how to solve a problem more intractable than Fermat’s last theorem: closing the racial and socioeconomic disparities in achievement that persist at every level of math education.

The California guidelines, which are not binding, could overhaul the way many school districts approach math instruction. The draft rejected the idea of naturally gifted children, recommended against shifting certain students into accelerated courses in middle school and tried to promote high-level math courses that could serve as alternatives to calculus, like data science or statistics.


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The attack by honestly progressives that should know better against intelligence and education of children (See also NYC eliminating gifted programs and AP classes to help combat racism) is bizarre


Some people are better at math than others. Some are better athletes. Or more creative. We should help develop and celebrate these differences.


Harrison Bergeron is supposed to be a dystopian story not a fucking blueprint.


This kind of crap is exactly why we lose elections. No parent wants their kid uneducated, so they will be more equal with other children.

Parents are voters. Parents are often also customers of our local school system.

Let's look at some recent policies.

Eliminating advanced and gifted classes because they are racist.

Mainstreaming often violent and disturbed special needs students into classrooms

Separating students by ethnicity for special lessons, assemblies etc

Covering up sexual assault under the guise of student privacy.

Common Core math. well I think we all remember that from a few years ago

Closing schools leaving parents completely in the lurch due to the pandemic.


Now these are not all Democratic policies (though some certainly are) and all of these policies are not necessarily wrong (I was in favor of closing schools for example) ... But one can certainly understand how a voter looking out for their children would be concerned and frightened by such happenings even without a right wing spin.

So when the right wing show a video of some teacher making students declare themselves privileged because of their sexual orientation or perceived race you can imagine how that can easily be spun with all this other stuff that is all to real.