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ALL POLLS ARE now open across the United States as Americans vote in critical midterm elections that mark the first major voter test of Donald Trump’s controversial presidency.
However, long lines and malfunctioning machines have marred the first hours of voting in some precincts across the US.
Some of the biggest problems were in Georgia, a state with a hotly contested gubernatorial election, where some voters reported waiting up to three hours to vote.
At a polling place in Snellville, Georgia, more than 100 people took turns sitting in children’s chairs and on the floor as they waited in line for hours. Voting machines at the Gwinnett County precinct did not work, so poll workers offered provisional paper ballots while trying to get a replacement machine.
One voter, Ontaria Woods, said about two dozen people who had come to vote left because of the lines.
“We’ve been trying to tell them to wait, but people have children. People are getting hungry. People are tired,” Woods said. Woods said she and others turned down the paper ballots because they “don’t trust it.”
Joe Sorenson, a spokesman for the county’s supervisor of elections, said some precincts “have had issues with express polls,” devices election workers use to check in voters and create access cards for voting machines.
Meanwhile, residents of several states were contending with severe weather conditions that many fear could affect voter turnout.
A line of storms moved through the Deep South overnight and early this morning, knocking down trees and power lines from Louisiana to South Carolina. There were no serious injuries, but an estimated 11,000 residents were left without electricity.
For almost two years, Trump’s rule-breaking, sometimes chaotic administration has enjoyed a largely free hand from the twin Republican-controlled chambers, but the midterms could finally see his wings clipped.
According to nearly all pollsters, the Democrats have a good chance of winning the House, while the Republicans are likely to retain the Senate.
But with turnout a key unknown factor and pollsters still unsure about the effect of Trump’s maverick style on voters, both parties admit that they may be in for nasty surprises.
After a campaign in which Trump was accused of race-baiting with repeated and unsubstantiated references to an “invasion” of undocumented immigrants bent on rape and murder, left-right divisions in America could not be deeper.
With reporting from Associated Press
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The problem is the is no policy. Once you remove say the Christian symbols others replace it based on majority. For example you’re not allowed to wear a cross around your neck in British hospitals, this was voted for and backed by the Muslim majority board. But, as a Muslim you’re still allowed to wear a hijab. As a Hindu they are allowed a Bindi.
Unless there’s a zero tolerance approach then it’s not fair. Systemically we are a catholic nation I certainly don’t think I’d have a right to land to Saudi and ask them to turn off the speaker for their call to prayer every morning and to instead play Ava Maria. I respect their right religion as should people here.
@Nurse On Call.: A hijab is not a symbol of Islam. It’s an item of clothing. Just as is a kilt.
If you think a hijab should be banned, then so too should nuns and monks habits.
@Nurse On Call.: i think religon should be very much personal, i have no problem with a workplace or employer accomadating employees and guests where practical,
But prayers before a council meeting – or before school , come in a few mins early
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: Just as a kilt? The hijab is a religious obligation that Muslim women have to observe.
@East Cork Cheeses: Or just do them at home.
@marklars81: Catholics are not obligated to wear a cross so doesn’t seem to be a problem.
@marklars81: the Hijab is most definitely not a religious obligation, but stems from a culture the wants to control women. A very well merited but different argument than here.
@marklars81: So you’re saying no one can wear a hijab without being obliged to?
And if you believe that the hijab is religious and that it should be banned, then you’d have to agree that monk and nun habit must also be banned.
@Nurse On Call.: nonsense. By all means wear a crucifix or a hijab. The state cannot endorse a religion and so no crucifix in the walls or prayers before committee
It’s simple
I’m not overly religious, but the race to a godless society is not good, Just think what will replace it, An oath to climate change or pledge allegiance to the rainbow flag. There is a strong negative undercurrent behind all these stunts. All the Best.
@087 bed: why do you think we need to make an oath to anything? Just get rid of it full stop.
@087 bed: but we do live in a godless society: he doesn’t exist.
@087 bed: Religion is the biggest con/stunt off all. There’s nothing remotely negative about treating everyone equally or trying to stop us destroying our own planet. Unless you’re a total C U Next Tuesday that is
@087 bed: There is nothing to replace it, that is the whole point.
@Gary Kearney: replace it with common sense
It is discrimination as it’s exclusively Catholic, so Rice is 100% correct. For too long this country has lived under the jackboot of the Catholic church, so any efforts to remove this should be applauded.
@The Fires: Maybe replace the symbolism with a picture of superior ‘races’ where the Irish are slightly more evolved than black complexion Africans but far less evolved as a ‘race’ than the superior Anglo-Saxon ‘race’.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Scientific_racism_irish.jpg
Origin of Species originated as a distinction between the famine Irish and the empire English, with Wallace framing it in 1858 as civilised/savage ‘races’ while Darwin softened it a year later to favoured/less favoured ‘races’.
Most here only know Darwin through the 20th-century American creationism vs natural selection variant. The creationist rednecks accepted that black complexion people were connected to monkeys, what they couldn’t bear was white complexion people connected to monkeys.
@Gerald Kelleher: can you please waffle somewhere else?
@Gerald Kelleher: Fair play to you, you bore people on numerous threads!
Remove all religions from public buildings. No crucifix, no kippa, no muslims clothes. Everyone should be equal, religion has no place for public servants.
@Alex: No Christian clothes either?
@Thomas Berry: This country’s too cold for loincloths!
Is this all they have to discuss. There mustn’t be many issues there, like housing, homelessness, and the cost of living at the local level.
@did you every wonder: yes they have all these issues to discuss, which is why they shouldn’t be wasting their time on prayer.
@did you every wonder: Precisely his point.
They are wasting valuable time on religious activities, rather than on those matters of importance.
Not to mention that these activities are sectarian.
I would wager the vast majority of irish citizens want nothing to do with religion
@Robert Halvey: don’t wager too much!
: I am not the only person who saw the damage Victorian natural selection could do as a prejudice conviction. Tolstoy, in his letter to Gandhi, knew it, too, despite the support of so many commenters here who use natural selection to act as people who are spiritual at all levels without any meaningful answer from the Churches..
“The second “scientific” justification lies in the statement that, because there is a constant struggle for existence among plants and wild beasts that always results in the survival of the fittest, a similar struggle should be carried on among human beings. This is in spite of the fact that humans are gifted with intelligence and love, faculties that are lacking in lower creatures subject to the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest.” Tolstoy
@Gerald Kelleher: good job we no longer live in Victorian time, eh?
@David Stapleton:
Secularists don’t believe in evil, so end up worshipping it as so many here demonstrate.
The Nazis appealed to natural selection for their invasion and extermination and imperatives, so the same Victorian icon worship remain along with their prejudice conviction.
Being party to evil is one thing, being mediocre before evil is many times worse.
@Gerald Kelleher: how can one worship evil, if one doesn’t believe in evil?
So….he finds Prayer offensive…..well you have no right to dictate…..
@Bookworms Dublin: you’ll find the dictating is done by the religious and always has been. How many atheist crusades have there been? How many atheists have gone on missionary trips to Africa to spread the word on atheism?
@Dermot Lane:
Want to see a secular crusade that is still celebrated as natural selection?
“In 500 years how the Anglo-Saxon race will have spread & exterminated whole nations; & in consequence how much the Human race, viewed as a unit, will have risen in rank.” Darwin
“Truly, this earth is a trophy cup for the industrious man. And this rightly so, in the service of natural selection. He who does not possess the force to secure his Lebensraum in this world, and, if necessary, to enlarge it, does not deserve to possess the necessities of life. He must step aside and allow stronger peoples to pass him by.” Hitler
Where are people with the style and love of humanity?
@Gerald Kelleher: it’s impossible to argue with you because your word salad comments make absolutely no sense whatsoever
Natural selection is the conviction of the aggressive against native cultures who were destined for extermination as inferior ‘races’. It is a secular vehicle that originated from famine Ireland and then transplanted to other parts of the world.
https://www.azquotes.com/author/12265-Cecil_Rhodes
Survival of the fittest is evil and the religion of the devil. You can all judge whether tribal aggression is at the centre of human life on Earth as superior/inferior ‘races’ or the religion of the spiritual where spirit/inspiration is the centre of the individual.
It takes an individual with courage to come here and remind others what they choose to follow.
@Gerald Kelleher:
NO
IT
IS
NOT
Natural Selection is the simple process whereby if a gene is beneficial to a species that the carrier of that gene is more likely to survive longer and propagate, spreading the gene into future generations, and if a gene is harmful to the survival then the carrier of that gene is less likely to survive and propagate that gene.
That is all.
Natural Selection is simple common sense.
@Bookworms Dublin: He is not dictating, he is saying if you want to pray but do not do it on council business time!
Typical nonsense from these sorts
You’d swear constituents were knocking his door down over this.
Get a life, mate
I suggest we have a Tarot reader present at every council meeting, to predict the outcomes of decisions they make. Or a Mystic Meg type to offer guidance and read horoscopes.
@Dermot Lane: the predictions of the Tarot reader would come far too close to making more sense then the actual outcome of some council meetings, you can’t do that
A joke. Enlightenment politics is a rogue variant of democracy with the two biggest practitioners being the UK and the States.
The idea of laws of nature (academics) and social legislative laws (politics) was bound to become overbearing and attract the worst and weakest type of individuals in research.
@Gerald Kelleher: what?
@Dermot Lane: don’t ask him to start explaining, please. Takes long enough scrolling through comments.
The ‘Age of Reason’ was a variant of democracy imported into America.
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/18.html
Only a few had the level of perception to recognise the Enlightenment subculture for what it is.
“I turn my eyes to the Schools & Universities of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages dire
Washd by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth
In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation; cruel Works
Of many Wheels, I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other” Blake
Now, we have a society with no connection to nature or no connection to the spirituality needed to love all creation. A growing disconnect passes from one generation to the next in what people call ‘autism’ with no fault on the individual or their parents.
@Gerald Kelleher: good grief!!! “what people call autism”?????
@Dermot Lane: What causes the Sun to rise and set every 24 hours and a thousand times in a thousand 24-hour days?
People with no connection to their surroundings insist that the Earth doesn’t turn a thousand times in a thousand days.
It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are 24-hour days in the year” NASA /Harvard
There is no autism, there is a growing disconnect between society to its terrestrial and celestial surroundings.
That is where secularist or 17th century enlightenment politics have brought society.
Shame you can’t affirm the romance of a sunrise and sunset every rotation but such is the mindset of a subculture follower.
@Gerald Kelleher: you’re mad. Seek help.
@Derm :
Imagine the most visible organisation on the planet being unable to present that the Earth turns once every 24 hours and a thousand times in a thousand 24-hour days because a person in the late 17th century went on a misadventure with timekeeping.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/facts/
The 24-hour day consists of AM and PM; therefore, it is anchored to noon, with one rotation responsible for the connection between clock noon and natural noon. The 24-hour day is an average as the variation from one-noon cycle to the next was known in antiquity. As average and constant are similar, the great astronomers in the 16th century could transfer average to constant in terms of rotation and the basis of the longitude system.
How can people be evil for a reckless and stupid conclusion?
Should he have started with the burka
Councils should stick to street lights, rubbish disposal and pothole issues. Let God worry about God. He, in his infinite mercy, might worry about local councils too.
It undermines the sacred nature of both religon & democracy to have official council prayers. I am amazed by religious people who think it is an non-issue: do they not have any sympathy for the sincerely held beliefs of others?
@Brendan K O’Rourke: no they don’t. That’s why most of the first 2000 years of Christianity consisted of the self appointed ‘official’ chuch persecuting ‘heretics’ who refused to conform to their version of Christianity
I will say a prayer for them. Hopefully they can get over themselves and knuckle down to the real business and stop all this woke malarkey.
@Patrick Westman: Social Democrats put even the Green Party in the halfpenny place when it comes to Woke ideology.
@SV3tN8M4: say your prayers at home, or in your place of worship, not as a collective in your place of work. It’s a simple concept, but as usual you make it into a culture war
@Patrick Westman: “sorry Councellor Westman, we’ll deal with your issues on housing, traffic and homelessness as soon as we finish this prayer. Priorities, dear boy, priorities”
@SV3tN8M4: This has been raised many times by various independents and parties, this time it happens to be the Soc Dems!
If it is about inclusion as opposed to exclusion why exclude prayers and or crucifixes? Let it be all inclusive. Irrespective of what a person’s faith is or isn’t… Include all!
@Tom Kennedy: there are, depending on who you listen to, between 3500 and 5000 gods worshipped by mankind. Exclusion is easier.
@Tom Kennedy: it’s a silly question. Are we going to say Muslim Jewish and Protestant prayers too and add Buddhist iconography and Jedi to the walls?
Religion has no place being endorsed by the state
Setting himself up here, let’s see how he performs in his role, he is going to be held to very high standards now. Hopefully he won’t be like his fellow Councillor in the West that they have removed & swept under the carpet, I didn’t hear this guy getting as offended over his colleagues disgusting carry on.
@SV3tN8M4: What a load of absolute tosh. You either agree with the motion or you don’t. Stop deflecting, and state your position
I’m an atheist, thank God, so the issue is neither here nor there with me
The Roman Catholic church has asked you, the people of Ireland for your atonement. You, the people of Ireland are going to be asked not to give it to them. Spear of destiny.
You are going to be asked to break rank with Rome.
You will not be asked to turn your back on the Lord.
You will not be asked to convert.
You will not be asked to change the scriptures.
There’s the Roman Catholic church and then there’s the Irish Catholic church.
Under new management is the end goal.
Archbishop Dr. Eamon Martin you have asked the people of Ireland for your atonement, it’s about time the people of Ireland gave you an answer.
Would you like an emergency mass or a referendum?
@Séamas Mac Cárthaigh: I have no idea what you’re on about.
@Séamas Mac Cárthaigh: I have no idea what you’re saying
@Dermot Lane: oops, sorry, double comment, I got an error message.
Hope it’s not the rosary.
You need to spend about ten minutes looking at modern theoretical physics to realise that if any of this God hokum is true, it’s vastly more complex than we could ever hope to understand and this beardy eejit looking down caring who I love, where i plant my crops or what i wear is just very unimaginative.
Oh my God comments are open
Wokeism equal to turkeys voting for Christmas in this instance.
Virtual signalling agnostic/atheists preparing the grounds and conditions for ‘another’ religion to feel right at home.
have your say