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Justin Adams

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
5 years 8 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 04/15/13 at 03:44 pm in response to House DFL tax plan targets top earners, smokers, drinkers

"The fact is, the cigarette and alcohol taxes merely pay back the state for some of its costs that come in the form of health care, prison sentences, car crashes and domestic issues."

Well, I guess you could say that was a fact. I'd love to see some accounting though...

Is it not also a fact that the state won a huge settlement from the tobacco companies to cover the increased healthcare costs related to tobacco use in this state? What happened to that settlement again? Tax...

Posted on 10/24/12 at 03:35 pm in response to Minneapolis busy preparing for Election Day and handling flood of absentee ballots

The statute is quite broad. There is no requirement regarding for how long you must be absent from your precinct. If you go to a cigarette store in another precint at some point during the day, you're technically 'absent from your precint on election day'.

Further, absentee ballots cannot be cast on election day, they have to be cast before the election. It is definately not fraud to change your plans - say you had planned to go to work on election day, but then a few days before the...

Posted on 10/24/12 at 03:38 pm in response to Minneapolis busy preparing for Election Day and handling flood of absentee ballots

I've served as an EJ, A Chair EJ, A Deputy County Auditor who administered in-person absentee voting, a hand counter and data team member for IRV voting, and currently serve as a precinct support specialist.

Everyone should serve as an election judge, unless you really don't think that this republican form of government is a pretty cool way of doing things. The work is so fulfilling and everyone is so dedicated to getting it right.

I'd recommend it for everyone. You can even...

Posted on 09/11/12 at 10:53 am in response to Separating church from state on the marriage amendment

I'm a moderator of a very large sexuality forum at reddit.com, and the founder and editor in chief of an online sexuality advice, opinion, education and variety magazine called sexpertslounge.com (nsfw, though not pornographic).

Sexuality in human beings serves multiple purposes. It is of course (in most cases) a necessary precursor to procreation, however, there is a great deal of research showing that social bonding in human beings is closely tied to our sexuality as well. This...

Posted on 09/11/12 at 12:12 pm in response to Separating church from state on the marriage amendment

In further retort to Mr. Swift's position that human biology in some way is responsible for the institution of marriage and the limitation of state sanction of that institution to opposite sex couples.

First, Mr. Swift enjoins himself to some very dangerious discredited branches of science when he observes an existing power structure (the historical subservience and ownership of women through the institution of marriage) and attempts to reverse engineer a scienctific position to...

Posted on 09/10/12 at 08:49 am in response to Will the voting amendment dismantle Minnesota’s current election system?

Is not innocuous-sounding. It sounds like a poll tax. It IS a poll tax.

If McGrath is correct (read, not lying through his teeth) suggesting that "substantially equivalent" should be interpreted as "separate but equal", well, the USSC seems to have something to say about that in Brown v. Board of Education. If Richie is correct that "substantially equivalent" is to mean "the same" then his conclusions are sound.

In response to Bob Peterson, voter registration manipulation is...

Posted on 08/15/12 at 09:28 am in response to Technology could supplant voter IDs at polls, but registration problems remain

Verify - ver·i·fy

1: to confirm or substantiate in law by oath.

Verify is exactly what we do now.

Many states require voters to declare a political party affiliation for purposes of primary elections - not everyone gets multiple columns on the same sheet of paper - some jurisdictions (outside our state) print seperate GOP and Democratic ballots, so party affiliation is an essential piece of information.

Photo ID does not prevent fraud. Are you unaware of...

Posted on 08/10/12 at 09:15 am in response to A college student's appeal to peers: Get involved, make a difference

There is a high level of correlation between the attractiveness of candidates and their electoral oucomes, but the age of the perceiver doesn't seem to be a significant factor in the intensity of the bias of voters toward more attractive candidates. The mean age of participants in a study titled "The Effects of Physical and Vocal Attractiveness on Impression Formulation of Politicians" by M. Surawski and E. Ossoff (2006) was 43.06, and the findings of that study confirmed and closely...

Posted on 08/01/12 at 10:34 am in response to The Ballot or the Bullet

Low turnout in mid term congressional and senatorial elections is regretable to be sure, but I think the author somewhat overstates the importance of such elections.

After all, no democrat or republican has seriously proposed a single-payer healthcare system, or an end to the practice of providing the entire world with a police force, or meaningful reforms to the tax code that would distribute the local state and federal tax burden progressively, or funded / authorized sufficiently...

Posted on 07/18/12 at 01:20 pm in response to LIBOR scandal: Will Feds target not just employees, but a whole bank?

Mr. Mintz overlooks the fact that the entire reason firms engage in malfeasance is to better serve their shareholders' short-term interests, at the expense of other stakeholders.

Shareholders who don't wish to lose their investsments shouldn't risk investing with firms that engage in illegal activities.

Once a shareholder enjoys years of inflated ROI, I think they get what they deserve when a firm is indicted and has to fold.

If shareholders don't get hurt, and...