Polybius
Polybius's JournalWow, the US still has many racist town names
The U.S.’s history of racism and segregation literally has its place — actually, many places — on the map, staining the nation’s landscape: Runaway Negro Creek in Georgia, Dead Negro Draw in Texas, Mulatto Bayou in Mississippi, Dead Negro Hollow in Tennessee.
Hundreds of these slavery-era names still remain on places across the country more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War. According to a 2011 report from the New York Times, the federal panel tasked with name-changing found more than 750 instances of the word “negro,” or a variation of it, in U.S. place names. Many of those names once used “n---er” in their title but changed after former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall demanded they at least be changed to “negro” in 1963. In some instances, that was enough to satisfy opponents.
But making an official name-change, even when there’s widespread support, isn’t as easy as it might sound. The debates can be contentious and multifaceted, and most name changes have to go through a bureaucratic process at the federal level, sometimes after a state-level approval.
In the case of Runaway Negro Creek, Georgia officials are trying to rename the small body of water outside Savannah to “Freedom Creek.” Republican Gov. Nathan Deal signed a resolution to formally begin the process last May, but the offensive name remains seven months later.
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/vbaaey/theres-hundreds-of-racist-place-names-across-the-us-heres-why-its-hard-to-change-them
It's time to change all of these names. It's 2019 already! 
If Bernie Sanders can run in 2020, so should Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton has not announced a 2020 presidential campaign — though we already know what would happen if she did.
Boisterous (mostly male) political pundits would immediately lay an axe to her candidacy, decrying her “selfish” and “illogical” attempts to serve the American public in the White House. Democratic lawmakers would urge her to withdraw from the race, calling for “unity” in the battle against Donald Trump. And when it comes to the president, his sexist smears would once again ignite an exhaustive election cycle riddled with false double standards.
Even the prospect of Clinton launching another run for the Oval Office has produced fervently critical commentary: headlines in recent weeks have read, “Please, God, not Hillary.”
All in all, a campaign roll-out for Hillary would face far more backlash than that of Bernie Sanders, whose 2020 announcement was met with millions of dollars in donations from voters in every state across the country and swift analysis on how the lifelong Independent lawmaker could possibly win in an ever-crowded pool of popular Democrats.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-2020-hillary-clinton-campaign-trump-sexism-candidate-democratic-primaries-a8787466.html
Good article!
What if: If Al Gore had been elected President in 2000, what would have happened in 2004?
I love "what ifs" so I might do more of these in the future. Anyway, let's say Florida had no hanging chads (or the votes were simply allowed to be counted) Gore won the state, and was elected President in 2000.
How would those four years have gone, and more importantly for this thread, what do you think would have happened in 2004? Who would have run against him? Would Bush have run again, since he had barely lost the last time and he was still young enough? My guess is yes, but this time he doesn't win the nomination. Not sure who else would have run, but maybe McCain? Romney? Maybe. Quayle? Phil Gramm? Probably not. Pat Buchanan? Nah, whoever it was probably wouldn't be a far-right nutcase that's likely to lose in a landslide.
And in the general election who wins? Obviously, this all depends on how his four years went. There might not have been a 9/11, since Gore would have probably taken the threats more seriously than that idiot Bush. If no 9/11, then that means no war in Afghanistan, and probably no war in Iraq, provided Saddam didn't violate anything major.
We also have to factor in that it would have made 16 years of one-party rule. That would have been unheard of in the modern era.
A lot of us always talk about Bush picking two Supreme Court Justices when they should have been Gore's. However, keep in mind that both of those picks came after the 2004 election.
Joe Manchin stood and cheered a call to ban some abortions at the SOTU
I get it that he's in a very Red state, but this was a bit over the tip.
https://twitter.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1092996852243415040
https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/06/manchin-cheered-late-abortion-ban-sotu/
Why did I get my state refund before my federal?
Maybe it's normal in other states, but in 25+ years of filing, I've never gotten my NY state refund first. The federal has always come first, sometimes weeks before the state. It deposited yesterday. Still no federal.
