There can be no other explanation for this Banana Republican stunt:
NEW: With 2 days until Election Day, Republican Sec. of State Brian Kemp, who is overseeing Georgia's elections as he runs for governor, announces that his office is investigating state’s Democratic Party while offering no evidence to back up allegation. https://t.co/exNS7PmxSh
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 4, 2018
It was already outrageous that Kemp refused to leave his Secretary of State post and is thus administering an election in which he is also running — an election for which Kemp’s office eagerly attempted to disqualify tens of thousands of mostly minority voters. Now this.
Maybe his internal polling looks bad, and this is a desperation move. In any event, it’s a goddamned disgrace.
Kemp’s contempt for democracy and Georgians couldn’t be clearer. This Saltine-American hopes Stacey Abrams curb-stomps his cracker ass.
hells littlest angel
Kemp is just young enough to have been one of Trump’s bastard children.
johnnybuck
I can only guess that he thinks he losing, and this will give him an excuse not to certify the results. Also, Trump is coming to Macon for a rally today. I would expect he will exploit the fuck out of it.
JPL
What are the odds that when trump is in GA later today, he calls Stacey a crook.. hmmm There were no consequences to Karen Handel for the white powder hoax before her win.
donnah
Stacey Abrams was on Meet the Press this morning and she handled Chuckles quite nimbly. She has the personality and the fire to win, and if Georgians can’t see that she’s a true leader for their state, they don’t deserve her.
As for the asshole Kemp, his desperate move is pitiful and shows how weak he is. Let’s hope Georgia rises up and above him and elect Abrams. I’m leaning on my friends who live in Georgia to vote for her.
JPL
This is the democratic response..
https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1059090604829884418
James E Powell
Is he wrong?
dopey-o
@JPL: every time i hit a Twitter link, all i get is the spinning circle saying “Something Went Wrong”. Would it be too much to include the text of the Democratic reply?
Titter Delenda Est!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I keep thinking that at some point reality has to win out. It has to slap the delusional in the face. If it takes too long, there’s terrible damage.
JPL
@dopey-o: Betty has the keys to the blog, so maybe she can post it. I can snip it and copy it but the blog set up prevents me from posting it here.
I’ll try to find it elsewhere
Mai Naem mobile
Georgians are stupid. They voted for Trumpov in 2016. Too many Americans don’t have an internal bullshit meter.
JPL
@JPL: Here’s the GA democratic party reply to Kemp’s antics.
“This is yet another example of abuse of power by an unethical Secretary of State. To be very clear, Brian Kemp’s scurrilous claims are 100 percent false, and this so-called investigation was unknown to the Democratic Party of Georgia until a campaign operative in Kemp’s official office released a statement this morning.
This political stunt from Kemp just days before the election is yet another example of why he cannot be trusted and should not be overseeing an election in which he is also a candidate for governor. It is also a fact that Brian Kemp is the last person who can be trusted on cyber security given his record of leaking the personal information and social security numbers of six million Georgians.
11th hour, cynical ploys come as no surprise from Brian Kemp, a man who raided the offices of organizations who register people to vote and had a woman arrested for helping her blind father cast his ballot. Brian Kemp is desperate to save his failing campaign, and it’s likely we’ll see ever more of his abuses of power as the election nears, but Georgians will keep working hard, knocking on doors, making phone calls, and voting to make sure he doesn’t get a promotion.”
johnnybuck
@Mai Naem mobile: We’re not all stupid, 46% of us voted for Hillary.
Yarrow
Good morning, Balloon Juice! I’m getting ready to go knock on doors for my chosen candidate this election (not my district, but a neighboring district). I have very little spare time but what time I’ve had I’ve devoted to getting people out to vote. I keep saying I’m leaving it all out on the field. I want no regrets on Tuesday night no matter how the election goes. I’m doing everything I can.
Kemp must be terrified. Great news! Keep going everyone! All the way through election day. Fuck the pundits. Fuck the mealy-mouthed both-sides-ers. Fuck the press who can’t go a day without finding a way to apologize for racists and white supremacists. Ignore them and get out there and get people to the polls. Let’s crush them! Tick tock, motherfuckers!
Mai Naem mobile
@dopey-o: try closing out the Twitter window and then click on the link.
Just One More Canuck
I didn’t see the byline, but then saw ‘saltine-American’ and knew Betty wrote it
Lapassionara
@dopey-o: Do you have a Twitter account? The link works for me, and I have an account.
TaMara (HFG)
@JPL: Here you go.
kindness
Kemp’s supporters aren’t stupid they are in on the misdirection play. I am tired of all this owning the libs thingy. Obviously, the state level Secretary of State position is overlooked and should be considered of higher value.
trollhattan
Can somebody please tell Pakistan that the “Burn the witch!” scene in “Holy Grail” is parody and not a documentary? And c.c. folks who believe the US has a national religion. [That could never happen here.]
Thanks
JPL
@johnnybuck: Like you mentioned, Trump now has something to rant about at the rally. It’s interesting that the other day Trump said in Indiana that Donnelly was running ads for the libertarian on facebook, and he was trying to tilt the elections like the Russians did. I wonder if that’s is where they got the idea.
trollhattan
@kindness:
California’s last two secretaries of state became our current governor and junior senator, respectively so yeah, it’s an important job.
SFAW
As I’ve said in the past, I can sleep well at night, knowing that Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions LXXXVIII will send a crack team of civil rights investigators to GA, to put the “fear of god” into Kemp.
Or not.
Mai Naem mobile
@johnnybuck: I stand corrected. I should have said there are enough stupid Georgian voters that Trumpov won the state in 2016.
JPL
@TaMara (HFG): Thanks. Earlier most of the comments appeared to think Kemp was playing dirty tricks.
Baud
So Kemp attempts the difficult self-Comey maneuver. Impressive.
OzarkHillbilly
@Lapassionara: I don’t have an account and it works for me. Firefox on satellite.
L85NJGT
That it had gotten out of voter caging range was my first thought as well.
The NRCC is now running ads claiming the liberals will bring on a single payer apocalypse. That’s throwing in the towel and pivoting to define the post-election debate. “We always loved Obamacare.”
Want to move the Overton Window? Win some elections.
JPL
I forgot that this tactic is not new for Kemp. He accused Obama of the same thing in 2016.
johnnybuck
@JPL: Oh yeah, I mean timing is everything. I doubt much comes from it outside of giving Trump rally material.
PIGL
I think he regards Georgians not so much as stupid as “accomplices”, or rather thinks that a working majority of accomplices are there to be assembled. And not without reason.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I gave him a 6.1.
Baud
@L85NJGT:
What is this crazy talk?
JGabriel
So, the article Betty linked quotes a tweet from Kemp saying:
It’s accompanied by a photo of 5 black guys dressed like New Panthers, two of them carrying rifles.
Which leaves me wondering, “How much did Kemp pay them?”
This guy is scum.
Damned at Random
The Democratic party needs to take state level Secretary of State races seriously. Put some money and resources in – or this ratfucking will become the norm.
Baud
@JGabriel: Your tone is uncivil.
JGabriel
@johnnybuck:
Please tell me they’re calling the rally line waiting outside the venue the Macon-Nixon Line.
JGabriel
@Baud:
Must be a day ending in ‘y’ then.
chris
@Yarrow: Good to see you! Thanks for the tick-tock.
scav
@JGabriel: Well, bless his heart. I’d entirely forgotten to check their endorsements for the Water Board and Local Sheriff.
debbie
@hells littlest angel:
He does resemble a jowly Don Jr.
Stuart Frasier
It really shouldn’t be legal for a secretary of state to oversee an election that they are running in. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that can be achieved, except on a state-by-state basis. I want to see Kemp and Kobach go down. Vote suppresion ought to be a federal crime.
scott (the other one)
@trollhattan: Without taking away from your larger point, or my nearly unbridled admiration for the junior senator from California, Kamala Harris was not Secretary of State; she was Attorney General.
debbie
@Baud:
Doomed to failure. He can’t utter “Gosh” convincingly.
MobiusKlein
I also have to say if folks from the Georgia Democratic were running a wildcat penetration test against the Georgia voter DB, they are fucking idiots. Leave that to the professionals please.
FlipYrWhig
@TaMara (HFG): The English teacher in me wants to point out that the syntax of the opening line actually suggests that the Sec’y of State’s office did the hacking. I know that’s not what they MEAN but that’s what their announcement says.
Adria McDowell
Was just watching the Weather Channel: the weather on Election Day is going to be horrendous in much of the South, including Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Virginia, and the Florida Panhandle.
I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. :-(
Dorothy A. Winsor
@FlipYrWhig: I hear you. I’m fighting the urge to tell someone elsewhere what a dangling modifier is.
trollhattan
@scott (the other one):
Whoops!
AG has a better uniform.
A Ghost To Most
Fucking Nazis
I gotcher civility right here.
satby
Assholes gotta asshole. News at 11. It’s a power trip thing.
And in that vein, I told the office manager at my old job that I could help her out for a couple of weeks on Mondays and Wednesdays, so if course, she scheduled me for a Friday… The Friday before I have two booths in two different towns and only one of me so far to run them, though I probably have someone lined up (just waiting for confirmation).
Just a joke; you try to extend the courtesy of the Golden Rule and they’re busy trying to screw with you because they think they can.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Damned at Random: They’re taking this office seriously. Former congressman John Barrow is the nominee for the position, and he’s running hard. No idea if he’ll win though
Humdog
@satby: So, you are not going to help out your old workplace, right? Stupid manager keeps chasing off the help and then alienates those drafted to come save the day. Your old boss needs a new office manager altogether. If the boss cannot get anyone in to work, the firing that needs to happen will be clearer.
Marcopolo
@Yarrow: Yay! I will be heading out in a couple hours to do a shift for Cort VanOstran here is St Louis. Hoping the weather improves just a little. It was raining & in the low fifties this morning though it looks like the rain has come to an end. Rain & thunderstorms predicted for tomorrow & Tuesday. Working the polls may be less than pleasant–I will be doing election/voter protection all day long.
guachi
John Barrow is a decent, blue dog Democrat. Last white Christian Democrat elected to the House in the Deep South, IIRC.
Hungry Joe
More anecdotal evidence: Walking a precinct for Ammar Campa-Najjar yesterday, I passed by a lot of houses because at this point we’re only contacting people who are undecided or who have said they planned to vote for Ammar. In past campaigns we’d see the opposition’s door hangers on a lot of those houses — sometimes even on the houses we visited. This time, nothing: I have yet to see a single Duncan Hunter door hanger. They have no ground game at all. We’re (supposedly) still 3-4 points down, but I’m starting to think we’re going to win this.
Going out again today. Come on, everybody! All together now!
Yarrow
@satby: You shouldn’t have to adjust your schedule to accommodate the office manager’s incompetence. You can always say you’re not available on Fridays, sorry. Let the office manager deal with it. You gave your availability. If she can’t schedule you on those days, when you’re the one doing them a favor, that’s her problem.
lamh36
@Baud:
Right; I had the same thought…this is straight up a Jim Comey move. And some in the MSM is being used in the same way it was used in 2016. Mofos never learn or likely don’t care enough about the truth
lamh36
Can the GA Dems countersue
Marcopolo
@satby: Only MHO but as long as you go along with her behavior you are enabling it. Just tell (politely remind) her you said Mondays & Wednesdays & that Fridays just don’t work for you, so sorry. Either she values/needs your help enough to take you on your terms or it isn’t worth it.
Ladyraxterinok
In KS Kobach oversees gov race while he’s GOP candidate. In MO Hawley oversees senate race while he’s GOP candidate. And Kemp in GA. A GOP plan to win!!
H.E.Wolf
@Yarrow:
Glad to see you. Your tick-tocks are the best!
Leaving it all on the field here, too. I’m going to finish my telecommute-style campaign database tasks by Mon. night, and may volunteer for data entry in the campaign office on Tues.
On Wed., I’m shepherding our favorite barista to register to vote. They’re sheepish about having missed the deadline for 2018. I’m looking at it as increasing the turnout for Dems, *next* time….
debbie
@Ladyraxterinok:
Don’t leave out Ohio. SoS Husted is running for VP with Mike DeWine.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Ooh, I see what you did there!
Geoboy
@Adria McDowell: Regarding the horrible weather projected for the South on election day, given the huge early voting totals coming from all over the place, but particularly millennials, this might be a blessing in disguise.
Elizabelle
@Geoboy: That’s a cool way to look at it.
Feathers
@satby: I think the correct response is to rescind your offer to work Monday and Wednesday.
I had a boss who would send declines to any meetings where he was sent a request for an RSVP when he had already accepted. What he told them was that if they weren’t keeping track of whether or not he was coming, it wasn’t necessary for him to be at the meeting. Petty AF, but so many people just see other people’s time as their’s to waste.
Chyron HR
@Adria McDowell:
Yeah, well, if the only hope for western civilization is that it never rains on election day from now until the post-scarcity socialist utopia is achieved then we’re inevitably fucked.
Ladyraxterinok
@debbie: The GOP really developed a plan!!
Elizabelle
@satby: Agree with Marco. What part of Mondays and Wednesdays does this critter not get? Don’t enable.
WaterGirl
@satby: What they said: @Yarrow: @Marcopolo:
You set your terms to help; if they don’t honor them and you go along with it, you’re telling them they don’t need to respect you.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Glad someone did. Not surprised it was you, m’dear.
(I guess if I were going whole hog, I could have done it without the “V”, crossed it out, etc. But that’s baseball so inside that it creates a black hole.)
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: You made me google!
jonas
@JPL: If a Dem SOS were doing something like this, it wouldn’t just be the local GOP responding to it on their twitter account, it would be the entire Wingnut Wurlitzer having a Category 5 rage-gasm over it within minutes. It would be leading on Fox, on all the AM Talk Radio and the right-wing blogosphere simultaneously. The SOS would be resigning by Tuesday morning. Progressives just don’t have the media bullhorns the Repubs do — we’re at a huge disadvantage when it comes to getting our side of the story out there or pushing back against Trumpist bullshit.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
Yarrow…is that you?
Good to see you ???
rikyrah
Kemp is scared shytless.
Despite all the voter Suppression… Abrams is still in there.
SFAW
@satby:
As better persons than I have already said: don’t do it. Outside of the whole ignoring-your-clear-terms thing: That office manager “succeeds” because persons of good will and competence allow her to get away with shit like that, because they’re professionals, and are working toward “the greater good” (so to speak).
Honus
@scav: that picture is hilarious. Yeah, right, those guys are real. Anybody in Georgia near enough to verify if that pawnshop in the background has a selection of those targets with Obama and Hillary images?
johnnybuck
@rikyrah: I really do think this is the case. he hap Pence here on Thursday, and Trump today. He backed out of the last debate. I really believe he’s seen the internals, and they don’t look good.
Mary G
I have no snark to give. This is the Reichstag Fire phase starting and it’s scary af.
Chetan Murthy
@satby: Heh. I’d respond with “sure, I’d be happy to help on those Fridays; my rate is $NNNN” where the number is at least 2x (preferably 4x) what you quoted previously.
Also: I -hope- that you didn’t offer Mon/Wed for whatever your customary rate is, yes? I mean, “value pricing”, right? Your former employer wouldn’t take on a job at short-notice, where they’re the only bidder, at the same rate they take for work where there are multiple competitors, right?
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: Oops, I should have been clearer. By “value pricing” I meant “if I’m helping you out of a jam, clearly my value to you is greater than that of a regular employee — so I’ll expected to be compensated more kthxbai”.
scott (the other one)
@trollhattan: I started to make a joke about the Postmaster General’s office, and that the Surgeon General has them all beat and then I started thinking about how much Trump would love to actually make his various cabinet members wear military uniforms except then he’d get pissy that they looked more impressive than he and he’d throw a tantrum and break out country a little more and I got depressed.
In other words: come on, Tuesday!
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Add me to the list. Nothing stupider than taking advantage of someone doing you a favor.
germy
SNL’s Midterm ad from last night
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: Yay, you’re back, and good for you! Check back in post-election, mm-kay?
WaterGirl
@germy: That’s pretty accurate, I think.
Is there a video of the cold open? I tried googling earlier but had no success.
germy
@WaterGirl: Yes, with “Jeanine Pirro”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG7szS15O8Q
JPL
@germy: My dog would tell you if he could that I’m the lady screaming at the children, since every time I see an anti Pelosi ad, my dog becomes terrified at my loud voice. I think I’m more like the flower lady, but with a bottle of wine.
oldgold
The transcendent political issue that has animated our politics over the past two years has been the Russian involvement in the 2016 election.
Yet, here we are on the eve of he 2018 election and this issue appears to have gone completely dark. This weekend watching the political shows I heard no mention of it.
Time an. …….
WaterGirl
@germy: Thanks for that!
danielx
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Reality does win, but sometimes late and at a terrible cost. Adolph Hitler didn’t give in to reality until Soviet shells were landing on top of his bunker. One commonality with Tangerine Torquemada: it remained quite clear to him that he had never made a mistake – all consequences were the fault of incompetent subordinates who had failed to carry out his order, or so goes the testimony of people who were in the bunker.
germy
@JPL: I’m the cat who rolls his eyes when he hears “maybe white women will do the right thing this time.”
But I think the white women who do the right thing will outnumber the women who cheer at PEETUS rallies wearing “He can grab my pu**y” shirts.
J R in WV
I’m not sure of the best thing to do with regards to “Office Manager” idiot at optometrist office. Certainly email OM with a decline, quoting the previous msg about “Mondays or Wednesdays” with a CC to the head optometrist would be my first impulse. Or just to the optometrist, allow them to inform Office Manager of the news.
Another way would be just to not show up on Friday, and explain when asked “I told you Mondays and Wednesday were available, what about that did you not understand? I’m working in wherever today, a long way from your office!?” ‘Cause she would be on your cell phone 5 minutes after shift started to give you hell for being late.
You don’t owe Office Manager anything, she’s why you left an otherwise good place to work, after all. You’ve told the Dr that too, already. Which is why just sending a copy of your offer to work M and W, with OM’s msg about working Friday to the Dr with a decline for Fridays is probably best. Let Dr tell Office Manager she F’ed it up again.
The optometry practice is going to be F’ed up as long as Office Manager is a manager of more than the tissue supply. Perhaps she should be demoted to lowest level receptionist… but then would act as if she was still in charge, those folks always do!!!
Platonailedit
Is this move because of fear of losing or is it the standard gop arrogance that that they can get away with it?
Mai Naem mobile
I am really worried that the GOP will manage to keep both the House and the Senate. I cannot imagine how Trumpov,McConnell and their pals are going to act. On the other hand I have fantasies of the Dems winning the House handily(50+ seats) and eeking out the Senate at 52-48 with Beto,Bredeson,Sinema and Rosen winning but Heitkamp and McCaskill losing. Gillum carrying Nelson on his coattails.
lamh36
germy
Washinton Post has a section appropriately called “The Fix”
Marcopolo
About to head off to knock doors! But let me drop this on y’all.
Ady Barkin, a progressive organizer who was diagnosed with ALS in 2016 & who I knew nothing about 18 months ago, has become one of my hero’s. Here are his thoughts on being the resistance:
I’m Dying. Here Is What I Refuse to Accept With Serenity.
Everybody have a great Sunday! Make some calls (if only to your friends & family), knock some doors, take something yummy to a campaign office, throw a last few dollars into the pot, try to fit one action/activity into your day to help win the election.
Let’s bring it home!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: Sen. Harris was AG.
ETA: As was Chairman Jerry when he ran for Governor this time. The first time he ran(1974), he was Sec. of State.
dmsilev
@germy: Even by Washington pundit standards, that’s remarkably stupid.
A Ghost To Most
@Mai Naem mobile: Only if they cheat. Oh, wait.
Ruckus
@lamh36:
They wouldn’t know the actual truth if it walked up and smacked them upside the head. They think the truth is whatever crap falls out of their mouths.
-It must be true, they said it, they are republicans and can do no wrong.-
There I just laid out their entire political ideal in one short sentence.
Jay
http://showercapblog.com/vote-goddamn-midterms/
A fun guide to all the Midterm races
Ruckus
@Platonailedit:
C. All of the above. Actually in this case it’s S. Stands for, well you know, all the shit he’s throwing at the wall.
sdhays
@germy: Conspiracy theorist? How about “objective observer of reality”?
Spankee doesn’t give a shit about this country and cannot handle the idea that a majority of people in it loathe him, but it’s a fact that he will relish having someone to blame as he burns it all to the ground. Maybe that will work for him as it has before, but the fact is he’s very, very guilty of many, many serious crimes and if the Republicans lose one or both houses of Congress those crimes will become more exposed. No matter what Spankee deludes himself about, that’s not going to be good news for John McCa…err, Spankee…
Litlebritdifrnt
@satby: I walked out of my job on a Friday at 5pm. Left my keys on my bosses desk, with a list of instructions for him and got on a plane to England the next day. Afterwards he kept trying to contact me by e-mail and facebook but I deleted my e-mail address and unfriended him on facebook. I have no interest in helping him or keeping him afloat after the way he treated me. Never looked back.
danielx
@satby:
You’re being treated as a convenience, not an emergency resource. Tell her sorry, no can do. You don’t owe her a thing.
normal liberal
@satby: Satby, it’s a shame she scheduled you on a Friday, since you are simply not available. That woman is a piece of work, specifically the incompetent/clueless piece. I like the suggestion that you advise the practice owner(s) about this insulting behavior, more in sorrow at her idiocy than in anger at the disrespect, and then let them tell the office manager.
I hope you have a great sales season now that the calendar and the weather agree that the holidays are upon us. (I’m in central Illinois, where today is cold and rain-swept and so very November.) Good luck with the woman busily cutting off her nose to spite her face.
Sebastian
Have you folks seen THIS??
https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1058814600617967617?s=21
Platonailedit
Ruckus
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I was trying to find an exit strategy at my last job and it hit me. The truth is always best. Gave the CEO my two week notice and one of the things he said was I had to do an exit interview with my boss. Told him, no I didn’t. The two weeks was a courtesy, nothing more. Once during that 2 weeks he told me, after of course a smart ass comment by me, that he could still fire me. I begged him to. He asked why. Because I would get a weeks pay for every year I’d worked there and I could always use the money. He declined. I smiled at him and he just walked away. I could have just quit, I would have been the third in 6 months, out of full time employees numbering less than 20. The atmosphere was toxic, as much as most of the employees tried to not make it so. I walked out of that building at the end of that 2 weeks with my head held high. Still the best, most worthwhile decision I ever made, and the last 13 yrs I have had some shit in my life.
Barbara
@Marcopolo: satby, have to endorse this. You told her no Fridays and my guess is that she scheduled you on Friday so she or someone else could get the day off. That’s passive aggressive BS.
FlyingToaster
@satby: Just to reinforce: Now you have to say no, and you have to make sure the owner knows why.
My mom went through a very similar experience; she was hired on to a PT clinic just after finishing her degree, 6 months after being widowed; the OM was both incompetent and deranged. My mom, goddess of logistics, did all of her own stuff but after 2 months flat out refused to cover the mess that the OM was making (which also involved massive staff turnover). Instead, she documented everything and dumped it on the owner’s desk every Friday evening (after the OM left). Six months in, the owner’s wife demoted the OM, and replaced her for the next six months, and then the owner promoted my mom to OM. The old OM threatened to quit, and was told to “feel free; we don’t actually need you…”
Your doctor, in this case, needs to have his nose repeatedly rubbed in the fact that his OM is a problem that needs him to solve it. It won’t go away on its own.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
I did that when I quit my last two jobs. In both cases, I never wanted to work for them again, so tellng the truth had no downside. The job before that, I couldn’t make that judgment, so …. tried to say nothing negative. It all depends on whether you can imagine ever wanting a job there again [or with that manager/management-chain], yes? If not, hell, sure, I’ll let ‘er rip.
But it’s a calculation. As it should be.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I think you shouldn’t say a damn thing to her, just don’t show up. You already told them you couldn’t work Fridays, why tell them again? Besides, actions speak louder than words.
Woodrow/Asim
@Sebastian: I have seen that tweet, I’ve been following her work for a few weeks now.
And this post is kind of the reason I have her on “observe.” There’s a lot of concerns I, as a (former) Computer Security person, have around electronic voting. We know, beyond any doubt, the majority of machines used in the US have major issues. Yet I tend to find the way Mz. Cohn writes, esp. her regular demands/disgruntlement that “the media” doesn’t pay attention to her posts, to be off-putting.
I’d want to see her sourcing on Mz. Kudaneeva’s visits openly posted. I feel similar about some of her other work. I’m not saying it’s not possible there’s something going in; I am saying that she writes in a way that’s really challenging to find to core concern/idea, such as this Medium post.
It’s not fair that someone doing good research is losing because of her writing abilities, but it’s also true that we respond well to Stories — and she tends to just “flood the zone” with raw information that loses me, as a reader, when I try to connect the dots and take it forward as a concerned citizen.
jonas
@germy:
Statistically, more presidents with the opposing party holding one or both houses of Congress have won a second term than not. But what they don’t consider is that Trump is in the unique position of being easily the most corrupt president in history and now one very important legislative body will be able to actually exercise some oversight of his administration. It’s not going to go well for Trump. Also, too, Mueller.
Central Planning
Can we start placing bets on what we think will happen on Tuesday night when Dolt 45 realizes the House and hopefully the Senate fall in to Democratic hands? Will he dust off his list from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_Donald_Trump and use that for blaming/insulting his own? Popcorn futures must be up!
ETA – looks like edit works
Jacel
@scott (the other one): And Jerry Brown was Secretary of State before his first stint as Governor in the 1970s.
Steeplejack
@dopey-o:
Press “page refresh” in your browser (not the Twitter “try again” thing). That almost always works, at least for me.
J R in WV
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I had a job where I was a lead programmer. A promotion was available, and the boss promoted a woman I had to help document programs she allegedly wrote. Happened on Monday morning. I just said “Denny, you gotta do what you think is best for your agency.” He was a little surprised I didn’t raise hell.
I went back to my desk, got a couple of fanfold paper boxes, put everything I owned in the boxes under my desk and chilled. Wednesday I resigned, gave two weeks notice, of which all was vacation time they owed me. Took a very long lunch couple of hours at my favorite sushi place. Doubled my pay at a job that had been recruiting me.
Friend asked why I was still working for Denny, I told him “Denny hasn’t messed with me yet, I’m still learning things. When he fks with me, I’m out.”
I admire the way you retired, though!
Woodrow/Asim
@Sebastian: Or, this Medium post as a perfect example — it’s just a copy/paste of a Twitter thread of 200+ tweets, the VEST majority of which are just links to other stuff:
https://medium.com/@jennycohn1/the-corruption-of-americas-computerized-elections-3d5b77124ebe
I want to know more, but she makes a ton of assumptions around her audience, then is frustrated when those assumptions don’t match. People — much less reporters — don’t have time to dig thru threads that ref. other threads that each infodump links after links. And that’s sadly her norm.
I hope someone can dig thru and help her find the core concept that breaks this into the mainstream.
Chetan Murthy
@FlyingToaster:
Uh [tentatively] I, uh, feel like this is taking too much responsibility for that doctor and their office’s well-being. To me, that only makes sense if I have some personal stake in that doctor’s success (say, if the doc were a relative or friend). But if “it’s just business” then my only caring is around whether I might want a job there in the future [or perhaps .. -perhaps- a good reference in the future]. That’s it. Otherwise, it’s all about “what do I get out of it” and “how much do I need to get paid so that I don’t feel like I was a chump a week/month from now”?
I remember when I quit my 19yr job at Ye Olde Gynormous Computer Company, my lab director tried to convince me to stay. He failed. And a friend reminded me that that guy -also- had an exit strategy [b/c the company was and is slowly taking on water] but of course it was his JOB to convince me to abandon my exit strategy.
Capitalism means we’re all in it for ourselves, and our bosses reinforce this over and over again. So we can and should respond with “fuck you pay me”. Sympathy is for our fellow rank-and-file workers. Not for management.
Jacel
@scott (the other one): Reminds me of the uniforms Nixon selected for the Secret Service at the White House. Uh, what part of “Secret” didn’t you understand?
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
Easiest calculation ever. 1+1 is akin to advanced calculus comparatively.
First, if it was the last place on earth, dying would be preferable.
Second, it was an unnecessary business in the overall scope of life.
Third, what business is so great that it’s the only place you can work? People pick up and walk hundreds of miles to hopefully find any job, in countries that they can’t even speak the language, that will put food on their non existent table. We should have to settle for some shit job working for some shit boss because we can’t be assed to demand better? We work for them, we are not slaves, just because some of them want to treat us that way. I owned a business for almost 20 yrs that hired skilled craftsmen. I had people who left because no one made a second pot of coffee. I asked them “Why couldn’t you make it, the coffee, the filters, the water is right there and I make it and don’t even drink it?” Too proud to make fucking coffee. It’s the opposite of too scared to quit and tell them why. I lived in OH for just over a decade, and in many towns there was one decent sized employer. People would put up with way too much shit to work there because it’s the only game in town. Fucking move someplace else. It’s why people like living in urban areas. Choice. Ability to walk away from a shitty job. Ability to walk away from the only and shitty store in town. Don’t move because it’s hard. Walk hundreds of miles because it’s necessary. Hmmmmmm.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
Amen. A-men. I felt that way about all of the last 4 jobs I quit.
James E Powell
You watch football, you get political issue ads. At least in California. It’s been a steady stream.
The hyperbole is borderline SNL parody. Apparently the backers of Issue 8 put it on the ballot because they wanted to kill dialysis patients.
sukabi
@dopey-o: I have to hit back and click the link again, which usually loads the tweet…happens about 97% of the time. And yes it’s annoying…think it might be Twitter’s way of “encouraging” getting an account…which i won’t. ?
Ruckus
Brian Kemp thinkkks Georgians are stupid.
It really is projection with these goons isn’t it……
Jay
@Jacel:
White House Police, not Secret Service.
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/28/archives/white-house-police-don-dazzling-new-uniforms-new-uniforms-for-white.html
WaterGirl
@Chetan Murthy: If I recall correctly, satby has some affinity for the doctor and has worked for the doctor more than once.
You could knock me over with a feather if satby decided to just not show up on Friday. I really like the idea of satby contacting the doctor about the Friday thing and letting the doctor deal with the awful office manager. It allows satby to communicate with the person she has some loyalty to, it allows satby to control the narrative so the office manager doesn’t get to put her negative spin on it with the doctor, and it also allows satby to skip the annoying conversation with the office manager.
Yutsano
@James E Powell: What’s interesting is I would probably vote no on that. I really don’t see how it improves patient care and seems to be a bargaining chip the SEIU is using. Doesn’t leave a good taste in my mouth.
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl:
Oh, aha. If I had some affinity for somebody up the mgmt chain, I’d do exactly as others have suggested: (a) send ’em the relevant emails/notes, (b) kindly and gently let ’em know that you can’t help out, b/c it wasn’t in the time-slots you’d offered, and (c) if I were feeling really snarky, maybe suggest the OM needs a new eyeglass prescription, to help her their reading?
Mary G
WaterGirl
@Mary G: That last one is kind of hard to believe.
Baud
@Mary G:
WTF happened to 50-64? Lead poisoning?
Baud
@WaterGirl: Yeah, maybe a typo. Should say GOP.
Uncle Cosmo
I wonder if the deeper intent of these shenanigans isn’t to tie up the GA Dems’ legal team in hopes they won’t be able to respond quickly & forcefully to the vote-suppression shenanigans the Global Oligarchy Putsch will engage in on Tuesday. I spoze we’ll get some idea when we see how much crap Kemp (almost rhymes with “contempt”) drops in court on Monday (with a compliant judge ruling that the GDP has to respond by Wednesday or so).
Uncle Cosmo
OK, what the fuck did I do wrong to throw my last comment into moderation???!???!?!
WaterGirl
@Baud: From the link:
bolding mine.
A Ghost To Most
@Ruckus: Gutless people end up in gutted towns.
Baud
@WaterGirl: I’m supposed to believe a 2 point change in a single poll means something?
PaulWartenberg
Why wasn’t there a law already in place to prevent someone like Kemp – someone assigned to oversee the election results – from running for high office at the same time?! There should have been automatic recusal or resignation to stop this type of corrupt practice. It’s so obviously biased to favor the SOB (and the SOB’s party) if they’re fighting for a key office.
Elliott Gorelick
I voted yes. Its a no brainer really. Reimbursement is guaranteed and most of it comes from taxes. No reason it should be allowed for them to charge for unlimited hookers and blow.
debbie
@Baud:
Disagree. I know lots of people in that age group, and not one is for the GOP. You get old, you get impatient, you get pissed.
(ETA: I’m not in a blue state.)
Chetan Murthy
@debbie: Maybe it’s b/c the percentage of women in the senior citizen bracket (and esp. the percentage of -ambulatory- women) is so high? I mean, like they say, it’s all grannies and kids, running the Resistance.
Which is excellent, gotta say. I sure hope the 65+ are goin’ Blue.
Jay
@PaulWartenberg:
Because it’s Georgia.
FlyingToaster
@PaulWartenberg: It’s not a flaw, it’s a feature.
In states with stronger constitutions, the SoS is the executive in charge of a vast bureaucracy. In our elections mailer in MA, toward the back it lists the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s departments:
Citizens Information Service
Elections Division
Securities Division
Real Estate Records
Massachusetts Archives
Commonwealth Museum
Massachusetts Historical Commission
State Bookstore
Regional Offices
Corporations Division
Lobbyists Division
Steat Records Center
State Publications and Regulations
State House Tours
Each of these departments has a full time staff of Bureaucrats that run that Department. Which keeps the SoC from interfering with, say his primary opponent. The political appointees are his personal staff.
In states with weaker constitutions, the SoS has direct control over things that in any sane operation would be handled by non-partisan professionals. Hence, Missouri, Georgia, etc.
I grew up in Missouri, and spent a century or so being educated in Indiana (8 years in Bloomington). You can decry the one-party-state that is the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, but honestly, it matters a hell of a lot less which party the individual is, for each of the state’s 6 Constitutional offices, than anywhere else. Because their jobs are specific: to run their executive office with each of its’ divisions, and not embarass the rest of us.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I seem to remember reading some data on the boomers that said it split into two halves. The older half, now retiring (oldest boomers are 72-3), is the Vietnam generation and votes more D than the WWII generation that’s older than them. The younger half came to political awareness during Reagan and votes more R.
Or there’s a mistake in the poll.
randy khan
@FlipYrWhig:
Freudian slip?
sukabi
@Baud: not quite retired, still trying to gather pennies for retirement.
It’s as good a guess as any.
Mary G
@WaterGirl: Social Security and Medicare under attack by Mitch McConnell. Even when Republicans claim that they’ll exempt current beneficiaries, seniors worry about younger members of their families. There’s a reason they call it the third rail of politics.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: These news stories analyzing movements in a single poll are kind of silly–aggregate a lot of them and you can see that most of the sample-to-sample movement in any one poll is noise. Whatever it is that the generic ballot question says (and it’s not clear), the aggregators have been stable for the past three weeks or so, and before that the Democrats’ advantage increased coming off the “Kavanaugh bump”.
Mary G
Republicans long for the days when only white men who owned property were allowed to vote.
But her emails!!!
@Mary G:
Seniors worry they’ll come for them next time. Basically, if everyone else gets screwed out of SS, then everyone else will make sure seniors end up on the streets eating out of trash cans the next go around.
satby
So I’m in line to vote in South Bend today. I should have gone Friday when I planned. There’s at least 200 people ahead of me and the doors close in one minute. Of course by law, they’ll let everyone finish voting, but they’re all freaked out by the turnout. And these are our Democrats standing tough here. So happy to see this.
satby
And OMIGOD, the hoops this red state is putting people through. I voted early (in person absentee) the last two times in Chicago and there is no comparison. They’ve rigged it so that people without time are forced to abandon their vote.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: Go you! Keep in touch while you wait.
Chetan Murthy
@But her emails!!!:
Oh lordy I hope you’re right about that. We read so many articles about seniors believing that protecting their entitlements requires denying them to those just a little bit younger. It would be so …*heartening* to our civil society if they felt instead that they were in it with all of us.
Which is why I will always support steeply progressive confiscatory taxation. Dammit. Dammit.
J R in WV
About these polls… I’m seeing data that indicates to get 1,000 useful responses to a poll’s full set of questions, they have to call 10 times that many phones. Making sure you have a well-balanced (by which I mean an accurate representation of the actual voters in the election being polled) set of responders under these circumstances seems practically impossible.
We know just from watching the ads and early voter data that the voting population this year is going to be very different from the voting population has ever been before. And most of the new and different voters specifically avoid polls of very sort. They won’t be responding to exit-pollers on election day, either.
Wife received a phone call maybe a month ago — it was a poll that didn’t really seem to be a push poll, which we do get from time to time. [ We do have and use a land line — there is no cell service at our house in a mountain cove surrounded by rocky hillsides. So we do get calls like this. ] She was having trouble understanding the person on the other end of the call. Our rural phone line is noisy, and the poll text was needlessly complicated, and the way to answer was stupid, complex, and the poll-taker would not accept an answer that wasn’t exactly what they had read to wife.
AS you can imagine, she didn’t stick with the poll-taker for the whole poll, which means the parts she answered should have been trashed. If they were used just for the portions she answered, that’s going to distort the rest of the poll. But polling is expensive, so I would be surprised if they did trash the 44-55% of the poll she did take.
I think polls are interesting but increasingly quaint methods of seeing what people in bulk think about complex stuff. The pollsters can tweak stuff with statistical models until the heat death of the universe, but they can’t make up facts from noise, no model, no math trick can do much with too much noise and not enough signal.
So I’m not paying any attention to the polls this cycle. We’ll see what they mean on Wednesday.
FlyingToaster
@satby: I remember voting day in Bloomngton; I used to work the early shift in grad school (either 5:30 or 6am); get out by 11 for an 11:30 class, go straight from class to get in line to vote at one or another church, skipping lunch, back to classes at 3, out at 5:30p, and then either another shift 7-11 or home to wash up and program for the evening. Sleep was midnight to 5. They didn’t want students voting, so they made sure that you’d be in lines.
CarolDuhart2
I’d like to be optimistic, but i’m still scared. The SNL skit made me laugh, though.
I think we are having PTSD from 2000,2004, and 2016, and doubting what we are seeing. And one thing I’m seeing is this: I can’t remember a midterm with this kind of turnout or effort ever. Usually midterms are sleepy affairs where you may check out the results the morning after. But that was when Presidents were sane, and no matter who won, things would be normal anyway.
I also don’t recall Republicans being this scared before. Or having to turn the fearmongering up to eleven just before an election. Usually the appeals are to patriotism or something positive, or something that would appeal to moderates who might waver.
Examples of what’s different: When i voted on 10/12 in the rain, I saw Democrats out in the rain handing out voter guides for judges. I don’t ever recall getting any guidance for judges before, even back in 2004 when I handed out guides for both the Primary and General Election, I don’t ever recall this much attention to detail. I also received a “PostCards for Voters” postcard, another judges voter guide, several texts asking me to canvass, whether or not I voted, et cetera. The last time I recall anything that close was 2008 and Obama’s campaign. Nothing like it in 2010, 2014, or even 2016. I’ve even got a phone call from the Ohio Democratic Party asking me for $100 (I didn’t have the money)
Democrats are leaving it all on the field in a way Ive never seen before.
Barbara
@Baud: Ronald Reagan. As in, came of age as voters during Reagan presidency. Have on average been the beneficiaries of public policy their entire lives: went to school when funding education was a priority and then as soon as they left school benefited from maniacal obsession with cutting taxes. Plan to benefit greatly in old age on the tax payments made by succeeding generations.
Chetan Murthy
@Barbara:
Holy forking shirtballs is this true! When I entered college in 1982, UT Austin (flagship frickin’ school of the UT system) cost $800/semester (or year — I forget). I knew students who paid for their college by working school-year part-time fast-food jobs and full-time in the summer. Today? Not a chance. And these oldsters (like ME!) bitch about the youngs. GAH!
Ruckus
@debbie:
I never noticed……
Maybe that’s the reason that my swearing quotient is used up by the third day of the month? I used to be able to make it past the 15th before I aged up to SS.
mad citizen
“Democrats are leaving it all on the field in a way Ive never seen before.” It’s great to see. I voted a couple Tuesdays ago, but saw a voting line out the door yesterday in my city’s satelite location, as my wife did in another town the other day. Hope it means something more than just more white people voting for idiots and enablers.
No matter what, I have a feeling the 2020 campaign effort by Democrats is going to off the chain, as they say. Hopefully the results are going to show that new voters respond to progressive ideas, not this blue dog crap that I have to vote for in central Indiana.
frosty
@Yarrow:
YayYarrow! Good to see you! Crush them we will.
CarolDuhart2
@Chetan Murthy: Dems controlled both Houses then, so Reagan couldn’t cut too much or be too draconian. Also with California being competitive, Reagan had to tread somewhat carefully on some of his agenda. Things don’t become draconian until Clinton had to make concessions to a Republican Congress in order to keep them from cutting social programs off altogether.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Isn’t the boomer gen from 1946 to 1964?
And the greatest gen from sometime before 1945?
That was always my understanding. So before 46 would be over 72 and of the greatest gen.
CarolDuhart2
@mad citizen: But even Blue Dogs won”t cut Social Security and Medicare, and Medicaid, approve crazy wars, or pass restrictive laws on abortion, gays, or cuts to needed programs.
I tell myself that the new voters want change. I mean, if you are satisfied with the status quo, why come out and stand in line instead of staying home?
Ruckus
@Mary G:
Good ole mitch is trying to ram it through before it burns his ass. Got to give him credit though, how many politicians have ever wanted to lay down on those energized rails and let the train run right over his ass? I can see it now, his back is on the rail as he’s tied spread sparrow and an 85 yr old retired engineer is at the controls, with the throttle pined to full slice, as the wheels split him in two very bloody sections. Gives me a warm feeling it does.
Barbara
@debbie: These are generational patterns. They fluctuate from year to year but this cohort has voted more Republican than generations behind and ahead of it since they started voting. Some of our madness just has to age out of the pipeline.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ruckus: Yup, that’s about right.
satby
@CarolDuhart2: speaking of standing in line, this one has moved about 75 feet in 50 minutes. Approximately another 300 feet to go.
Ridiculous.
Chetan Murthy
@satby: Crrrrikey, satby. There oughta be a law. We really need to make a fricken’ law!
Ruckus
@CarolDuhart2:
I waited in line 4 hrs to vote in OH in 2004. A good part of that 4 hrs was in the rain. I was, by far not the most pissed person in line. It was that obvious. Ken Blackwell should be roasted over an open spit for that one. But of course he won’t, because it wasn’t the worst case at all. Just a preview of coming events. They couldn’t win in 2000 without cheating, what national election have republicans won since that didn’t involve cheating of one sort or another? – NONE –
Their numbers are fewer, their policies are extremely undemocratic. They think they understand a representative government. To them it means that the representatives get it all while the people that they work for and who pay them get shit.
They got lucky in that their disinformation campaign worked. It took decades but it’s worked. They forgot the first rule of thieves though, only take everything if no one sees you, because greed always catches up. Hard not to see them, working out in the open as they do, but they managed for the most part. What we are seeing is people have rubbed the sleep from their eyes and are starting to see what’s been going on and the only way to defeat them, vote. Vote like your life depends on it, because it very often really does.
NMgal
@Chetan Murthy: I transferred to UT-Austin in 1985. In-state tuition was ridiculously low — maybe I’m remembering wrong but ISTR it was less than $20 a credit hour, so even with a full time load my books were often more expensive than tuition. The big deal was to be able to pay living expenses, which I was able to cover with scholarships and a very part time job. My parents kicked in probably $500 a year (car insurance). I graduated with no debt whatsoever. That’s the way it should be or if you can’t score scholarships there should be grants and *really* cheap loan programs.
People in my age cohort who bitch about “these lazy kids today who should work their way through school and not rack up debt by gum” make me crazy; they seem to have no clue how much costs have gone up and available aid has gone down. I feel for every former college student burdened by ridiculous debt.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Ruckus:
I saw what you wrote last night and I want to thank you for your kind advice. I’ve always enjoyed talking to you and others here. Going over last night’s thread, I think I understand what went wrong and I’m going to do my dead-level best to not repeat it. I’ve been pretty annoying the last month or so.
I’ll definitely think about talking to someone, but I can’t make any guarantees, because I have some reservations. If it’s ok with you, I’d like to just forget it ever happened and move on? There are a few people I’ll still need to make amends with, but I won’t bring this up again to you.
Suzanne
@CarolDuhart2: At church this morning (ultra-liberal progressive Methodist church), our pastors made a statement about the importance of the midterm elections, but also about trying our best to remain calm and mindful and to focus on neighbor love. The service closed with reminders to breathe and basically to chill out. Everyone is stressed TF out. I haven’t been sleeping well or feeling well for the past three weeks. I vaguely remember a time when my life wasn’t characterized by a constant low-level feeling of anxiety and powerlessness. I liked that.
CarolDuhart2
No matter what happens Tuesday, I suspect a lot of us will keep active in preparation for 2020. It used to be Democrats would take off for a while before starting up for the next set of elections. But Trump has fired up a Resistance that considers elections just another phase of that resistance. Postcards to Voters can be issue postcards. Fundraising will begin to raise funds to entice people to enter 2020 races and to help those 2019 local races.
Sebastian
@Woodrow/Asim:
I am sorry what has the delivery to do with the fact we have a Russian election official being all friendly with the ratfuckers in Georgia? After they already stole an election?
Are you a troll?
Suzanne
@NMgal:
Dude. Mr. Suzanne and I have north of $200K between us. We are very fortunate in that we bought a house in a great neighborhood and school district during that very brief window when home prices were low and there was a $8K tax credit for first-time homebuyers. We’ve lived here for eight years and the house has doubled in value as the housing market has rebounded. And our mortgage is less than rent on a 2-bedroom apartment in this area. There are perks to living in Phoenix.
And the student debt (both for graduate degrees) has definitely been a wise investment. We both pull down approximately double what we could have earned with just a bachelor’s. We both have professional licenses that require a master’s. But holy shit. It is such a burden. We have nothing saved for our own kids’ educations. It feels like we will never get ahead. I know that, compared to most, we are in great shape. But damn.
Meyerman
@NMgal: Yep, I remember those days, too. UC Berkeley was $1400/yr for in-state students. $3500/yr in today’s dollars. The craziest thing was that the graduate divisions charged the same thing if I recall correctly, so you could go to Boalt Hall (law school) or UCSF medical school for the same amount of money per year.
ETA: those days being 1983-1987
JPL
@Suzanne: Same. I know you don’t have this problem but the fall back time change didn’t help me.
JPL
@CarolDuhart2: If the white nationalists win is it okay to take time out just to cry.
J R in WV
OK, regarding many voters having to stand in the rain for hours in order to vote, when others (white rich republican tending voters) walk right into the heated space and vote right away. This is obviously unfair, discriminatory and intentional, as well as probably illegal.
We need to file multiple civil suits against the people in any given voting district responsible for placing voting materials/machines/poll workers irresponsibly and unprofessionally. The suits should require an adjustment to allot voting opportunities based upon actual numbers of voters in the most recent election (this one, to be clear) AND demand a cash payment from the person(s) responsible for polling locations and voting material allocations for every hour of every person wasted standing at the hourly wage earned by those person making polling decisions or the hourly wage earned by the person standing in line, whichever is highest.
Stick them in their wallets for being irresponsible and discriminatory towards everyone who needed to stand in line whenever it was obvious to a dammed fool that polling places were going to be overwhelmed, from the first day voting was open to the end of voting Tuesday.
Wife just found a bag of groceries that wasn’t put away. Snacks, milkbones for the dogs, and a bag of Kona blend coffee beans. So glad, again!!!
Kelly
@NMgal: I graduated from University of Oregon in 1980, debt free. I’ve forgotten what costs, financial aid and wages were in the 1970’s but I could pay for everything with a good summer job and a part time dorm kitchen job during the school year. Much easier start to my life than is possible anymore.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
This is the crux of the issue. The future has nothing because you are paying so much for the education that can make paying for the education possible. And knowing what you do, providing a place to work for many others, and in someone building it in the first, ok the second place, this makes no sense. We have had the next generations futures stolen for an extra billion here or there for some already richer than rich fuck. For quite a while we had not inexpensive education but paid for by all of us that benefitted all of us, students and taxpayers. That’s all gone, into some asshole’s already full pocket. And with the tax cuts that only benefit the ultra wealthy, it was just made far worse. If this isn’t reversed soon, I predict in the next 20-30 yrs or so we will see a reenactment of the French revolution. Don’t know about the guillotines but the sentiment is rising and by the same sort of people, the workers, the builders, the providers.
Jay
“And the student debt (both for graduate degrees) has definitely been a wise investment. We both pull down approximately double what we could have earned with just a bachelor’s. ”
The ROI on many advanced degree’s has gone down greatly, due to wage stagflation, boomerism klingons and degree inflation.
When I started in what was my field for a couple decades, you got your foot in the door with some technical courses from one of two Orgs, or an OpMan Certificate. You moved up over time and gathered enough courses to get Certs.
Now, to get a foot in the door, you need a Batchelor’s and best be working on your Masters. You can move up to a Manager’s position or a MPS position, but the Director’s and VP slots are all still filled by the same guy’s who had those jobs 20 years ago and are now in their ’70’s.
The jobs also pay roughly what they did 20 years ago.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
So glad you had a calming service at church today. I’ve been a wreck since last election evening, when I realized we were screwed and going to have a criminal president. If I had understood what else he was going to do besides steal money I would have been really demoralized past recovery.
Medication helps with sleep, but emotionally we have both been on the edge for months, off and on. I’m better now that thing look like recovery may be possible, but I’m not planning on being calm again for another couple of years.
Hang in there everyone.
@JPL:
Yes, time to cry again is OK. But not long, OK? We gotta stick the next several elections to put these fascists away~!!~
Woodrow/Asim
@Sebastian: I wish I was a troll, I hear they get paid for this stuff. :)
More seriously, I’ve been an occasional commentator here since 2008, starting under a different name and with a website that I took down many years ago.
To your point, I thought I made mine clear when I said “I’d want to see her sourcing on Mz. Kudaneeva’s visits openly posted. I feel similar about some of her other work.” I’ve been reading her for a while and, among the many political writers I follow, she’s the one I find most frustrating to understand _where_ she’s pulling her sourcing from.
So. For example, I finally tracked down a source for Mz. Kudaneeva coming to the US recently. I did it by searching her name in Google, finding Cohn’s tweet, then finding a reply that said that a Colorado country office had tweeted her visit — but didn’t just provide the tweet.
It took a couple of tries, but I finally pulled up that source tweet from the County Clerk — a source that, if provided, would have helped ground Cohn’s claim. It allows people to do their own due diligence to confirm her work, without having to lift every piece themselves.
And that’s my point. Cohn is clearly knowledgeable and detailed in some key ways, on this topic. Like I said, this is something that concerns me greatly; I know, in theory, the risks. Moreover, I live next door to GA, have a ton of friends there, and am so happy that someone like Abrams could be Governor over my neighbor state.
But there’s a parallel to the old statement that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” — said proof must be clear and focused so others can follow and even confirm your work. And Cohn, for all her other talents, fails that test by thinking breadth of data is better than a core narrative that breaks thru the doubts people have that our voting systems are At Risk.
A Ghost To Most
@Jay:
Old people with bad bathroom habits, or boomers who refuse to retire?
For the record, I retired as soon as I was able.
JPL
@J R in WV: Not long I promise.
Ruckus
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
This is just my opinion. But it isn’t OK to just move on.
As was said by a kid in a move once, life comes at you fast. It will leave you in the dust. Not because it wants to but just because it does. Don’t let live leave you in the dust. Get help. It’s not a sign of weakness, it really isn’t. Think of life as playing a musical instrument. You need help learning how to play it correctly and then you can add your own talent to it. Life is no different, none at all. The reason that so many people have answered you is that we see a glimmer of promise. You are still building yourself, we actually all are, even us old farts. But sometimes you need a bit of, and this will sound a bit silly, a bit of light shined on what’s important, what’s less important, guidance in how to find that out and how to get to the other side of the impasse right in front of you.
So I’m going to repeat myself. Please seek help. It will make your life easier, it will make it better. I know this because I’ve gotten help in the past and I’ve provided it to some as well. There wasn’t anything new I learned, other than how to get past the impassable that was right in front of me. We all need that at some time, every single one of us. Some of us have friends or mates who can provide that but even they most often can not be as direct or honest as they need to be. Get help. You will appreciate it for the rest of your life, you really, really will. It will do two things for you, first help you now. Second it will show you that none of us can really do this alone. We can try but we don’t succeed. So GET HELP. Do it tomorrow. Not the day after, not six weeks from now, tomorrow. Take the time, you will thank yourself later.
Jay
@A Ghost To Most:
Refuse to retire.
sigyn
@satby: I hope you’re telling her, “Sorry, that won’t work for me. Good luck finding someone else to help”.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Ruckus:
I completely understand what you’re saying. I think I will talk to someone about some of my issues. I feel I’ve made some progress recently, but I’ve also been in a kind of a rut. However, what I meant was for you and me, on this blog, to not talk about it again and move on from it, in this context. I was thanking you for your kind advice. And I can’t tell you have much I appreciate what you’ve said.
Ruckus
@A Ghost To Most:
I’m past the age and desire to retire, just not the ability. I’m working on that though. And soon I don’t see myself going to work at all. What a lovely sight that is. My boss asked me a week or so ago how I got to being very receptive at the idea. From working for 55 yrs is how, for spending decades at work 50-70 or more hours a week working, almost always on my feet, always moving. Told him I’ve earned retirement, with blood, sweat, muscles, joints (the ones that muscles make move…) I want to sit and contemplate my navel, watch others work, it’s my fucking turn.
JMG
@A Ghost To Most: You’re not alone there and it was the best decision I ever made.. Look, gang, the Democrats might not win anything Tuesday night besides not quite enough Hiouse seats and a few low hanging fruit governor’s races. I don’t think that’ll happen, but it could. Then again, they could win a whole lot, the House, six or more governor’s races and a couple Senate surprises. Either way, please don’t succumb to either despair or euphoria. Give yourself some mental health time and get ready for the next round.
ally
@trollhattan: @trollhattan:
It’s true, that job is important and getting more so all the time. But Jerry Brown was Sec. of State in the ’70s, and Kamala Harris never held that post. Each of them was state attorney general before getting their current posts.
Ruckus
@Jay:
Maybe they are like me, they can’t really retire yet. Life hasn’t been quite as kind to them as to others. IOW life has been normal. It isn’t trying to shit upon anyone in particular, like the ones it should (drumpf, cough, cough) but it’s just moving on, as it always does. Of course there are those who have decided that the world can’t do without them, that everything will just fall apart if they aren’t in charge, you know, those special little shits.
Jay
@Ruckus:
Naw, I’m where you are.
The guys I’m still seeing in the slots have been earning $250K+, full benifits, full pensions, stock options for a couple decades now.
The guys and girls under them are making $65K, part benifits, part pension, trying to self fund a RRSP with a 3% match, which is what I made almost 20 years ago.
JR
@Mary G: It makes me think that the Jacobins are right after all
CarolDuhart2
If we flip some state legislatures I think the first thing we should work on, barring emergencies, is work on voting issues: My suggestions:
1) Back to paper, whether it be mail ballots, hand counted ballots, scanned ballots. Beyond the obvious issues with electronic voting, there’s the cost/and ability to upgrade and replace parts and software. Pen and Pencil never need upgrades and spare parts, and if the power goes out, ballots could still be counted. When you think about it, our system relied on pen and paper for generations, and as long as we made sure there were observers, worked pretty fine.
2) Early voting everywhere. People can’t do the standing in line on one day anymore when they have long commutes before and after work.
3) End partisan administration of elections. It’s a conflict of interest and a guarantee of cheating, or at least getting “help” by co-workers. Have an electoral commission of bureaucrats administer elections.
4) End felon disenfranchisement-hell, even let some prisoners vote from County Jail. Might speed up prison reform measures.
Ruckus
@Jay:
I’m getting paid $1/hr more than I paid my foreman in the mid 80s. I’m not complaining it’s a good job. My boss told me a couple of years ago that people in their late 30s to late 50s can now make easily twice that if they have the education to operate the machines and software of today. He pays the younger guys to go to school and they now know more than he does about the software. But I work 3 days a week, because working more, I can’t recover by the next week. I can do the stuff that the younger guys can’t, the extreme precision stuff and specialized machines. So I still have a place but it won’t be all that long till that changes.
Like I told someone else, life comes at you fast. You have to adapt or get out of the way. Those guys making $250K and full bennies will move on, if only because they die off or get retired by management. If they are paying $65K to middle management/workers, they could save $100-150K a year, kick out the old guy and move people up. If they don’t see that sooner than later an MBA will come along and inform them that they aren’t screwing the help hard enough.
Karen
@Ladyraxterinok: Exactly.
Will all Goppers be able to do this? It could be days or longer before it goes to the courts.
Uncle Cosmo
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No it isn’t. The “Greatest” or “GI” generation is essentially everyone who experienced Pearl Harbor & WW2 as an adult (whether or not they actually went off to war) – birth years roughly 1908-27. The Silent generation sits between the GIs and the Boomers; they were kids during the war & came of age from the late 1940s to the mid-60s – the last of them coming out of college just as Vietnam was heating up.
Jay
@Ruckus:
“Like I told someone else, life comes at you fast. You have to adapt or get out of the way. Those guys making $250K and full bennies will move on, if only because they die off or get retired by management. If they are paying $65K to middle management/workers, they could save $100-150K a year, kick out the old guy and move people up. If they don’t see that sooner than later an MBA will come along and inform them that they aren’t screwing the help hard enough.”
The guy’s I’m watching/familiar with should have moved on 15-20 years ago. The industry is lean at the top, 10-15 guys running the show with 500-800 under them.
It caused a ripple effect, with the Manager’s staying in place for far too long because the only way “up” was an outside promotion or a “sickly season”.
These are the guy’s who hire the Consultants, and the first thing any good Consultant knows, is what the Client want’s to hear.*
That’s why a bunch of the “middle jobs” are now going to 1 year “contracts” and TFW1 workers happy to make $45k with nothing else.
* I tried consulting, got 1 contract in 2 years despite the backing of the Biggest Boys on the Block. Lead the only 1 year ERP Implementation in the biz with a 100% sucess rate. Was let go because there was more money for the Corp in 4 failed Implementations and 6 crapfest Implementations than 1 letter perfect, seamless one.
Ithink
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve missed you here!
Ruckus
@Jay:
I’d bet that if you went through an entire MBA course there would be no mention of product or implantation quality, only the amount that didn’t have to be spent on any project, IE how much they’d saved the company. If it was covered in any way it would be as an after thought.
Which of course lines up with your, and a number of others concept, “What the client wants to hear.” Which is how do I not spend money. I hear all the time about how much things cost to produce airplanes. I’ve been paid some of that money, in my own business and in my current job. And the thing to remember is that a crashed airplane costs far, far more than it takes to make, and having crashed it, it is no longer any good whatsoever, so no one wants to see them crash. That’s not true of any consumer good or service, without government intervention, say by the EPA. And just look what numbnuts is trying to do with that.
Ruckus
@Uncle Cosmo:
Thank You.
I didn’t check so I fucked that up. I knew the boomers started in 45 and that my oldest sister was earlier. Although it would have been difficult to ever call her silent.