Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

This blog will pay for itself.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

We still have time to mess this up!

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Bark louder, little dog.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Trump Crime Cartel / Blood From a Stone

Blood From a Stone

by | 235 Comments

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How addled and confused is Rudy Giuliani? So foolish that he apparently thought Trump would come to his rescue:

In the weeks since the feds raided Rudy Giuliani’s apartment and office in late April, close allies have tried to ferry a slew of emergency requests to former President Donald Trump and his advisers.

But according to three people familiar with the matter, Trump, as well as several of his legal advisers and longtime confidants, have been hesitant about swooping in to help the embattled Giuliani, who for years worked as Trump’s personal lawyer, a political adviser, and attack dog. Giuliani also served as a major player in the Trump-Ukraine scandal and as a key driver in the former president’s efforts to nullify Joe Biden’s clear victory in the 2020 election.

Team Trump’s reluctance to intervene comes at a time when federal investigators have ramped up their probe into whether Giuliani’s Ukraine-related work during the Trump era amounted to an unregistered and illegal lobbying operation on behalf of foreign figures. So far, no charges have been brought against the former New York City mayor as a result of this investigation, which began in 2019. Trump’s silence has led to simmering frustrations among members of Giuliani’s inner orbit, who privately allege that the ex-president’s team is working to convince him to hang Giuliani out to dry in his hour of need.

You’re not going to get a penny from him. Maybe a promise of money, or a tweet or statement wherever he is writing, or something. But Donald Trump never pays his debts.

Reader Interactions

235Comments

  1. 1.

    craigie

    What is Team Trump? There is no team – it’s just him. He’d toss Ivanka to the sharks if that was what he needed to do to save himself.

  3. 3.

    Mike in Pasadena

    Good. I’m glad TFG is doing the right thing for the first time in his life.

  4. 4.

    sukabi

    It’s not just a matter of not paying his debts…If he did as Guiliani wants he’d be implicating himself in several crimes….you’d think a former US Attorney would know that….?

  8. 8.

    Ken

    The writer seems to think there actually is something Trump could “swoop in” and do, but just what would that be?  He doesn’t have pardon power.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    Spaced out.

    Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier of the U.S. Space Force was fired on Friday for claiming the Department of Defense has an agenda “rooted in Marxism” because of its diversity trainings.

    A Space Force spokesperson told the Washington Post on Sunday that the agency had ousted Lohmeier “due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead.” Source

  12. 12.

    Spanky

    Don’t use this title again unless I’m going to see a bloodied Roger Stone.

  16. 16.

    Tim C

    Again,  I’m gonna harp on this again.   Rudy may have always been this evil down deep, but he wasn’t always this dumb or unsophisiticated.     Something is badly wrong with the man’s brain.

  17. 17.

    Wapiti

    @NotMax: I have to wonder if this space cadet wrote out this anti-Marxist screed at his government job on his government-provided computer or at home in his government-provided officer’s quarters.

  18. 18.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @NotMax:

    @Baud:

    This is all of a piece of the “Cultural Marxism” bs reactionaries like to bellow about. I remember way back in like 2015-2016 MRAs and the like were using such terminology

  21. 21.

    Gary K

    Like so many of Trump’s associates, Rudy has become the 4th line of a Knock Knock joke.

  24. 24.

    MisterForkbeard

    @NotMax: It’s worse than that.
    First: If he’s making political stands as a uniformed member of the military, he’s in deep shit if he didn’t clear this with his superiors (and he didn’t – either his book, or his book appearances). This is explicitly against the rules.

    Second: The guy is incredibly stupid. He accused the military of being Marxist, and then when asked for an example he brought up the 1619 Project (which is related to the miltary) saying “that at the time the country ratified the United States Constitution, it codified White supremacy as the law of the land. If you want to disagree with that, then you start (being) labeled all manner of things including racist.”

    The Constitution literally said black slaves (and only black slaves) weren’t allowed to vote under any circumstances but they could be counted as 3/5ths of a person for representation purposes. It literally codified white supremacy.

    It’s as stupid as the rest of the party. Also, Matt Gaetz saying he’s going to bring this up in Congress immediately, which should tell you a lot about the company he’s keeping.

  25. 25.

    Mike in NC

    Trump and Giuliani: two of the filthiest rats to ever crawl out of the sewers of the Big Apple.

  26. 26.

    namekarB

    The only thing Trump will do for Rudy is to create a “Help Rudy” PAC and try to raise money that Trump can skim off the top

  29. 29.

    debbie

    @Tim C: 

    Agreed. Same with all of TFG’s defenders. What kind of ill-imagined psychotropics produces these nutty conspiracy theories?

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    @Mike in Pasadena:

    I’m glad TFG is doing the right thing for the first time in his life.

    If Trump is actually doing the right thing, it’s only coincidental; he’s doing it because he’s too selfish to help out a co-conspirator.

  31. 31.

    Calouste

    @NotMax: Little known fact that the US Department of Defense spend most of its time and effort between 1960 and 1975 discussing the finer points of Das Kapital with its counterparts from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

  35. 35.

    gene108

    @NotMax:

    Which new Guardian will be appointed to take his place?

    Edit: What do Guardians on guard duty call themselves? (Curious, but I can’t think of anything witty).

  40. 40.

    HeleninEire

    @Tim C: When Judy, his wife…not the cousin wife or the wife who is the mother of his children (of whom he announced their breakup on TV). The third wife…the nurse, said “as a nurse I can say he is not the person I married.” OH MY.

  41. 41.

    Morzer

    Now, what’s that useful phrase that comes to mind…. ah, that’s it –

    Thoughts and prayers.

  42. 42.

    gene108

    @namekarB:

    create a “Help Rudy” PAC and try to raise money that Trump can skim off the top

    If by “skim off the top”, you mean Trump will keep all the money, I agree with you.

  47. 47.

    Another Scott

    @craigie:

    It says right there in the story:

    But according to three people familiar with the matter…

    Easy, peasy:

    1) John Barron
    2) John Miller
    3) David Dennison

    I’ll let Maggie H. know where to send the check.

    HTH!!1

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    lgerard

    In other news, the letter that the board of Supervisors of Maricopa County sent to the Arizona Senate president today, responding to the claims that they deleted data and miscounted ballots, is all kinds of awesome.

    A brief bit addressing the “deleted files”

    That the Senate would launch such a grave accusation via Twitter not only before waiting for an answer to your questions, but also before your so called “audit” demonstrates to the world that the Arizona Senate is not acting in good faith, has no intention of learning anything about the November 2020 General Election, but is only interested in feeding the various festering conspiracy theories that fuel the fundraising schemes of those pulling your strings. You have rented out the once good name of the Arizona State Senate to grifters and con-artists, who are fundraising hard-earned money from our fellow citizens even as your contractors parade around the Coliseum, hunting for bamboo and something they call “kinematic artifacts”while shining purple lights for effect. None of these things are done in a serious audit. The resultis that the Arizona Senate is held up to ridicule in every corner of the globe and our democracy is imperiled

    and

    Regardless, the failure of your so called “auditors” to locate data files on the copy they made of the County’s server speaks more to their ineptitude than it does to the integrity and actions of our dedicated public employees who effectively and accurately run the elections in the fourth largest county in the United States.

    read it here

  50. 50.

    dmsilev

    @lgerard: I saw that earlier, it’s a marvel. While terseness is nice, there’s something beautiful about an elaborate, extended, thorough “fuck you”.

  54. 54.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    For a self described innocent man, Ghouliani sure sounds panicked

  57. 57.

    MisterForkbeard

    @lgerard: Wow. That is a thorough and extended ‘fuck you’.

    I can already tell you that the fever swamp on the right is calling this a “abject fear from the establishment”. They’re convinced that multiple boxes of ballots have been verified as fraudulent, that the Audit has already demonstrated massive election fraud for Democrats. Whenever the sorry state of the audit is noticed, they scream that it’s “getting too close” and that we’re all afraid of the results.

  59. 59.

    Geminid

    @Catherine D.: They can cancel the Space Force. But can they cancel the Space Force March?

    As comedian Brent Terhune would say: “AH DON’T THANK SO!”

  60. 60.

    RSA

    (Not directly related, but… I thought of this because of NotMax’s comment.) In case this isn’t generally well-known, personnel on DoD installations are being told something along these lines (this one is for my workplace, taken from an official Facebook post):

    To reiterate my message from last Friday, fully vaccinated civilian personnel and service members are no longer required to wear a mask indoors or outdoors at Department of Defense facilities, the Deputy Defense Secretary of Defense announced in a memo on 13 May. This new policy is in line with recently updated CDC guidance, which said those who are fully COVID-19 vaccinated (and are two weeks beyond their final vaccination) no longer need to wear masks. Be advised, however, that if you are awaiting fully vaccinated status or have chosen not to receive the vaccine, a mask is still required (to include children).

    I thought this was interesting, because the DoD has been pretty conservative about COVID over the past year and more, with regulations to match the most stringent I’ve seen in localities across the U.S. Like a lot of people, I’m distrustful of the willful non-vaccinated. In the military, the “decline-to-vaccinate” rate is in the range of a third, so lower than the overall Republican rate, but still not great. I hope they’re right.

  61. 61.

    Jinchi

    @Ken: ​The writer seems to think there actually is something Trump could “swoop in” and do, but just what would that be? He doesn’t have pardon power.

    Giuliani is apparently asking for 3 things:

    • For Trump to “confirm” that Rudy was acting on government’s behalf – and therefore wasn’t an unregistered foreign agent.
    • For Trump to also confirm that Rudy worked as his personal attorney – and therefore all of his files are protected under attorney-client privilege.
    • For Trump to actually pay him (this would not only help Rudy financially, but also reaffirm point 2).

    All Trump has to do to help him out is make a simple statement.

    Personally, I always thought it was a bright red flag that Rudy claimed to be working pro-bono as a personal attorney for one of the richest* and most powerful men on the planet.
    *I know, I know, but Trump is wealthy by any normal standard.​​​​​

  62. 62.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    the optimistic view is that Manchin needs to be seen (by himself) as going through these motions before he agrees to something more dramatic

    Andrew Solender @AndrewSolender
    NEW from Manchin and Murkowski to congressional leaders: “We urge you to join us in calling for the bipartisan reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act through regular order. We can do this. We must do this.”

    I would argue that a majority vote is “regular order”. The filibuster is not in the dang Constitution! (just had to get that out)

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    @Tim C: Financial desperation may be a factor now. He probably has debt, and substantial alimony payments as well. Even when he was raking in tons of money by peddling influence, with his highflying lifestyle he was likely living beyond his means.

    The knowledge that trump raised a couple hundred million dollars after the election, but will not try to help Giuliani with his legal bills, could even  make Giuliani turn on trump. But trump is a career criminal who learned long ago not to give outsiders any legal leverage over him. Even if Giuliani were to cooperate with federal prosecutors, he might have nothing to give, at least nothing on trump.

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    @Tim C:

    Old age, with the help of Rudy! and his life long admiration for his own being seem to be the major issues. That first part, old age, can sneak up upon one, and smack them rather strongly in the ole noggin, rendering one into a mass of quivering, abundantly confused and stupid protoplasm. It appears to have done just that to ole Rudy!

  66. 66.

    cain

    @Jinchi: Wow, given all of Trump’s history about not paying people – did Rudy think he would be some special snowflake? No way in hell, already Trump thinks he is a loser and will want nothing to do with him.

  68. 68.

    cain

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​
     
    I’m not as worried about Machin at all – I’m more worried about Sinema. She is a wild card. But I wonder if she will change her position if she realizes that women’s rights are on the table – and that the GOP is going to roll back everything they can.

  69. 69.

    Raven

    Tax question. If you have an accountant doing your taxes will you get notified by the irs when they file.?

  70. 70.

    Jinchi

    @Ken: The third thing will never happen

    I know, but I put that in the category of aiming above the target in order to hit the target. Rudy’d be happy with 2 out of 3.

  73. 73.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @cain: I agree she’s a wildcard, but on this issue I’m less worried. She’s a co-sponsor of the For The People Act (Manchin is the only Dem who’s not a cosponsor, I believe)

  76. 76.

    CaseyL

    @cain: One can hope, but Sinema might be one of those people who figures anyone she knows who needs BC, or an abortion, or actual gynecological care, can go to a state, or country, that still offers those things.

    White, wealthy, and privileged, IOW.

    (She was a Green, once upon a time.  Greens are the poster children for white privileged pseudo-progressives.)

  77. 77.

    Anya

    I’ll never believe Rudy was a good federal prosecutor no matter how many times this is repeated. The 80s were just questionable in terms of justice so a showboating asshole like Rudy seemed competent. I am also convinced he was corrupt.

  78. 78.

    Ken

    @Jinchi: Well, the other two sound a bit like confessing to conspiracy, though I am not a lawyer.  In any case, that wouldn’t greatly matter to TFG, for whom the main only determining factor is that he doesn’t tangibly benefit, so they’re not going to happen either.

  79. 79.

    burnspbesq

    @Tim C:

    He may have been a show-off (e.g., perp-walking people off trading floors), but Rudy was a damn good U.S. Attorney back in the day.

  80. 80.

    Jinchi

    @Raven: Hopefully the accountant would give you confirmation and a copy of the returns.

     

    But you should also be able to check yourself.

    https://www.usa.gov/check-tax-status

    You can file your tax return by mail, through an e-filing website or software, or by using the services of a tax preparer. Whether you owe taxes or you’re expecting a refund, you can find out your tax return’s status by:

    • Using the IRS Where’s My Refund tool
    • Viewing your IRS account information
    • Calling the IRS at 1-800-829-1040 (Wait times to speak to a representative may be long.)
    • Looking for emails or status updates from your e-filing website or software
  82. 82.

    coin operated

    @NotMax: I read somewhere that this doofus was busy disparaging Secretary Austin.  When you want to end your career in the surest way possible, say something stupid about top brass…

  83. 83.

    Jinchi

    @Ken: ​
     

    that wouldn’t greatly matter to TFG, for whom the main only determining factor is that he doesn’t tangibly benefit.

    Rudy is desperate, which is where a lot of Trump’s people end up, and where he likes them.

    My guess is that Trump’s play is to dangle the possibility of a pardon after he gets re-elected in 2024. That’d keep Rudy quiet for several more years.

  84. 84.

    Kristine

    @Raven:

    Tax question. If you have an accountant doing your taxes will you get notified by the irs when they file.?

    I was, because I need to sign and return to said acct’s the form the name of which I’ve forgotten that allows them to file. Then I receive the email update that the Feds and the State accepted my filings.

    I don’t know if every accountant is different or not.

  85. 85.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:

    Is the real enemy Marxism, communism, soshulizm, Demorcatizm or wokeism? I wish they’d tidy up their trigger words list.

  87. 87.

    trollhattan

    @lgerard:

    What do they really think? :-)

    That’s all kinds of awesome, and what the AZ Republicans richly deserve. Not that they’ll appreciate or even understand the seething contempt in that response.

  88. 88.

    The Golux

    @Raven: I didn’t get any indication from the IRS, other than the refund being deposited in our checking account.  Today, (ten days after the deposit), we received a post card from our accountant’s office noting the date that our return was submitted.  So the IRS is quicker than our accountant.

  90. 90.

    burnspbesq

    @Raven:

    if you e-file, the preparer gets an electronic acknowledgement of receipt—and if it bounces, the preparer is notified of what needs to be cured.

  91. 91.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @NotMax:

    I’m curious as to the qualifications of a Space Force light colonel. Would  seem to be somewhat of a mediocrity.

  93. 93.

    J R in WV

    @NotMax:

    the Department of Defense has an agenda “rooted in Marxism” because of its diversity trainings.

    OK, this blows my mind… Totally deserves to lose his job, should lose his pension too, just for being so dumb!

  95. 95.

    Ruckus

    @Jinchi:

    *I know, I know, but Trump is wealthy by any normal standard.​​​​​

    But is this actually true? It looks like he owes money to a lot of people and he isn’t smart enough to actually keep track of it himself. A lot of his properties are in hock up to the roof. Or beyond. His income is limited, first by Covid and second by his own ignorance. He thinks he makes money by buying and selling, but does he actually? Forbes says he’s worth 2 1/2 billion but they also used to say not that long ago he was worth more than 5 times that. He doesn’t seem to have enough money to pay to fix his 757, even so he could sell it. I’d bet it will be scrap in the not too distant future. I understand that his building in NYC is, not doing all that well, mar log gone seems to be not holding up all that well, now that he’s just the note holder, not the president.

  97. 97.

    dnfree

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): just yesterday I was informed on Facebook that my support for BLM and rights for women, etc.,  is because I have been influenced by Marxism and critical race theory. The fact that my own experiences are the basis for my opinions is just proof of how sneaky Marxism is, and how naive I am.

  99. 99.

    Jinchi

    @Ruckus: ​
     

    Forbes says he’s worth 2 1/2 billion but they also used to say not that long ago he was worth more than 5 times that.

    I never believed Trump’s self-described status as a billionaire, but the fact that he has a 757 to lose is pretty telling all on it’s own. I doubt he’s worth less than $100 million which is rich by normal standards, and even if his estate ultimately owes more than that, he won’t be the one to pay the cost.

    TFG is never going to live on the street.

  100. 100.

    J R in WV

    @Raven: ​
     

    If you have an accountant doing your taxes will you get notified by the irs when they file.?

    No. We get an email from our accountant when they file electronically, and including details about the money owed/paid
    and any quarterly estimated payments we need to make.

    But IRS doesn’t notify us of crap, ever, unless there’s an error and they need information or money to make things square.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @Ruckus: There is a Trump Winery about 30 mile southeast of me. I think it might be first to go. trump will get a good price for it, as it’s in a real estate hotspot.

    A friend knows a carpenter who did some building at the winery. His boss was cheated, of course.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Jinchi:

    Remember that 757 has only one engine right now and is parked on an airport in NY. It’s not cheap to replace an engine but if it’s going to scrap, as I understand it, they install a used engine in it and fly it to the scrap yard, where they remove anything useful. In the case of his plane I’d be that’s not much. He’s the 4th or 5th owner of the plane and it’s seen a fair number of flight hours. And I agree that he’ll never live on the street but I’d bet there won’t be a red cent left after everyone takes as much as possible of what they are owed. I wonder if anyone is taking bets on when that might be. Or maybe being hopeful.

  104. 104.

    Kropacetic

    OT rant: I’m tired of arguing with anti-maskers about their right to juggle loaded firearms in a crowded theatre or whatever.

    That is all.

  105. 105.

    Emma from Miami

    Guys, I know this is way off Rudy, but I need some help.

    I am retiring on May 31st. I applied for my SS benefits at the end of February on the advice of a knowledgeable friend who said they were backed up because the pandemic and all the crazy things going on. The online response said the application was sent to the local Miami office and the turnaround would be four weeks.

    I have spoken to two agents at the local level and all they say is “you’ll get something in writing by the middle of May.” Well here we are. Nothing, nada, niente. What’s my next step?

  107. 107.

    Yutsano

    @Raven: ​
    As long as the accountant included you as the person to e-mail about the initial filing updates you should. But if you don’t hear anything in 48 hours bug the accountant. It shouldn’t take longer than that to finish the process.

  116. 116.

    RaflW

    @L85NJGT: And yet 98 out of each 100 will completely fail to absorb the lesson(s). It’s wild, and worrying, how readily so many people will just go off the rails like this.

  117. 117.

    Kathleen

    @Raven: I’ve had accountant do my taxes for years and IRS has never notified me. He submits the return electronically after I pay my fee to the accounting firm.

  118. 118.

    L85NJGT

    @Raven:

    My favorite bit about the 757 was the press breathlessly reporting on the “solid gold” fixtures. If any of that shit was real, it would have been stripped clean in a week on a podunk tarmac.

  119. 119.

    mrmoshpotato

    In the weeks since the feds raided Rudy Giuliani’s apartment and office in late April, close allies have tried to ferry a slew of emergency requests to former President Donald Trump and his advisers.

    LOL!  Emergency requests.  “Donnie, can I flee to Russia with you and Ivanka?”

  120. 120.

    Roger Moore

    @Ruckus:

    Trump is actually a fantastic illustration of how misleading a concept net worth is.  Nobody can put an accurate value on a lot of Trump’s assets, so it’s really difficult to say whether he’s worth a lot of money or deep in debt.  But the truth is that in a lot of ways it doesn’t matter.  Trump deals in large amounts of money, and he can use some of that money to fund his lavish lifestyle.  As long as he can keep the money flowing, he can continue to live like a rich man even if his estate will be crushed by debt when he dies.

  123. 123.

    Ken

    @Roger Moore: We’re all multi-millionaires, in this new glorious world of NFTs.  Who would have thought you could get so much for an apparently-random bit string that would fit on a floppy disc?

  125. 125.

    Ruckus

    @Emma from Miami:

    I’ve only dealt with SS once since starting my payments in 2012 and that was because the website is basically useless. So I had to go into an office to attend to business. That was 6 yrs ago and the guy I talked to was fine and handled everything just fine. My experiences by mail or website have not given me any confidence. But my experience with getting my money deposited has been perfect. I suspect that between covid and the work load, they are backed up and that middle of May can cover some ground. I’d wait another week before having a cow but then it’s not me that’s wondering what the hell. I’d bet though that 4 weeks is rather normal time for a response so the end of May seems what I’d expect a response. Also with covid I’d bet all the offices are actually closed so I have no idea what else you can do but wait. I’d probably call after another week just to see if any thing is moving along.

  126. 126.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Eric (technically) owns the winery business, TFG owns the Albemarle estate on which the winery is situated, as far as I can tell from a quick and cursory reading.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Winery

    Of course god only knows how labyrinthine the books and ownership records actually are. When are we going to hear something from the accountant guy, Weisselberg or whatever his name is? If he hasn’t been keeping at least three sets of books all these years, I’ll eat a Covid mask.

  127. 127.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in Pasadena:

    Good. I’m glad TFG is doing the right thing for the first time in his life. 

    Throwing himself into the Sun  along with his Soviet shitpile mobster crime family, as well as the rest of the Rethuglican party and its shitpile voters would be the right thing.

    And it wouldn’t come close to paying for what he did to this country.

  129. 129.

    Raven

    @Gin & Tonic: 10 hr offshore. I’ve done zip in the surf and the wind is blowing like hell for the next few days we are here. I’ll take it all for that Wahoo, I’ve never even seen one much less caught one!

  132. 132.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Ruckus: The 757 airframe has value for conversion into a freighter, it’s got no real value for passenger service these days. Whether the Trump 757 is worth purchasing for conversion is another matter.

  134. 134.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken:

    He doesn’t have pardon power. 

    You sure about that?  It is the Office of the Kremlin’s Bitch after all.  Maybe Dump’s Daddy Vladdy can pardon Rudy Colludy.

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @CaseyL: Sinema was a Green the first few years of this century. Then she became a Democrat and won a seat in the Arizona legislature. Arizona got a new  Congressional seat through reapportionment after the 2010 Census, and in 2012 Sinema won the seat despite her Republican opponent’s claim that she was a “pagan hippie.” Then she became a pagan hippie Blue Dog.

    Sinema is generally regarded with frustration and contempt around here. But how do Arizonans feel? A Phoenix polling outfit, OHPredictive, dropped a poll a few days ago that showed positive/negative opinion among registered Arizona voters:

    All Arizonans: 44%/36%, +8%.                                     Dems: 54%/26%, +28%.                     Indies: 43%/34%, +9%.                   Rs :36%/48%,  -12%.

    Senator Mark Kelly showed better among Democrats, worse among Republicans, and in matchups with five different prospective 2022 challengers, led by 7 to 9 points.

  140. 140.

    Emma from Miami

    @Ruckus: ​
      The problem is, 4 weeks turnaround clock supposedly began ticking the first week of March. I suppose I could wait until the last week of May.

  141. 141.

    Roger Moore

    @Ken:

    It’s not that we’re all millionaires.  It’s that when you deal with really large amounts of money, the thing that matters is how much money you deal with, not how much you own.  It’s far easier to go from being a billion dollars in debt to having a billion dollars in wealth than it is to go from ordinary money to either one.  Because of that, someone who is billions in debt will be treated better than someone who isn’t in debt but has only a little bit of money in assets.  Once you get to deal with money at that kind of scale, you’ll be treated as a big shot even if the evidence shows you suck at dealing with it.

  142. 142.

    Kristine

    @Raven: I should’ve been more specific–I received the acknowledgments from the accounting firm that my returns had been accepted. They forwarded me the IRS/State-assigned tracking numbers along with time/date of filing.

  143. 143.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Emma from Miami: I applied in January for benefits to start at my FRA in March.  I imagine you have an account on the SSA website and have been checking the status there.

    I checked often but it was like the 1st week in March when the confirm letter was posted and a couple of days afterward a description of benefits.  So it was tight timing,  but I also learned that benefits are paid in arrears, so no $ until April.

  145. 145.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tim O’Brien, who IIR actually saw trump’s taxes and other information when trump sued him, estimates that he has $2B in assets and $1B in debt. That was pre-pandemic, and his three most valuable assets are one-third shares in each of three different office buildings, two on the West Side of Manhattan and one in downtown San Francisco. As I recall their part of a partnership he sued unsuccessfully to get out of, with group called Tornado. I’m skeptical of the end of the office, but I do wonder if those buildings haven’t lost a lot of value and more than a few tenants.

    The golf courses are almost all financial losers, I think.

  148. 148.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @J R in WV: The US military is far and away the most socialist institution in this country.  How did this stupid git get commissioned in the first place?

  154. 154.

    Mike in NC

    @mrmoshpotato: I’d like to see Joe defund the Space Farce to where  it has no duties or responsibilities. The members would drop out like dead flies.

  155. 155.

    Ken

    @Robert Sneddon: Whether the Trump 757 is worth purchasing for conversion is another matter.

    If ever there might be something to the stories of “cursed airframes”….

  161. 161.

    Renie

    @Emma from Miami: something sounds off. I applied to take social security thru my online account in the middle of April. The first week of May I already had a letter approving my benefits to start in July as I requested. Keep calling.

  162. 162.

    Another Scott

    Krebs – One weird trick to protect your computer from Russian hackers:

    […]

    Nixon said because of Russia’s unique legal culture, criminal hackers in that country employ these checks to ensure they are only attacking victims outside of the country.

    “This is for their legal protection,” Nixon said. “Installing a Cyrillic keyboard, or changing a specific registry entry to say ‘RU’, and so forth, might be enough to convince malware that you are Russian and off limits. This can technically be used as a ‘vaccine’ against Russian malware.”

    Nixon said if enough people do this in large numbers, it may in the short term protect some people, but more importantly in the long term it forces Russian hackers to make a choice: Risk losing legal protections, or risk losing income.

    […]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  163. 163.

    Ruckus

    @Roger Moore:

    I understand. But my thought is that his 4 yrs of public office BS did not do him any favors in the economic market. He did that for his ego and he lost that last November. He gets older by the day and I don’t mean that in a calendar way, I mean it in an old fart, shit is hitting the fan and no one can fix or stop it way. He’s played fast and loose with money and from what I gather, the law and now he has fewer people who could actually help him than he’s had in the past, and several of them are in as much trouble as he is. His world is circling the drain and if he’s lucky his breathing will fail him before his wallet does but it might not. I’m rooting for not, I’d like to see what happens when he finds out that the magic has completely disappeared.

  164. 164.

    Kay

    This letter from the Maricopa County supervisors to the state senate President is pretty wonderful

    We will not attend your meeting on May 18, 2021.
    In your letter, you invite us to attend a meeting at the Arizona State Capitol on
    Tuesday, May 18, 2021, at 1:00 p.m., and you request that we bring Election
    Department officials who would have knowledge of our elections procedures.
    We will not be attending. We will not be responding to any additional inquiries
    from your “auditors”. Their failure to understand basic election processes is
    an indication you didn’t get the best people to perform in your political theatre.
    We have wasted enough County resources. People’s tax dollars are real,
    your “auditors” are not.

  166. 166.

    dexwood

    Very late to a thread I’ve not read just to say fuck that fuckin’ Rudy fucker.

  168. 168.

    Tim C.

    @burnspbesq: Agree.   And I’ve seen enough interviews from back in the day when he was going after the Mafia to have the impression he was, at one point,  quite sharp.

  170. 170.

    Rocks

    @Emma from Miami: I had similar trouble when I was getting started.  I visited my congressman’s local office.  A very helpful staffer took a bunch of information and said they would get right on it.  In about two weeks I got a lengthy letter of apology from the Social Security Agency with a promise to fix it in a wekk, which they did.  Needless to say, I go door to door for my congressman every two years.

  171. 171.

    Another Scott

    One for Billin – AndroidPolice:

    At the moment the arms race in mobile phone cameras is all about the number of them, with two, three, or four rear lenses and sensors being commonplace. Sharp is bucking that trend with the Aquos R6, which features just one massive rear camera bump. It’s a 20.2 megapixel sensor with a massive surface area of one square inch, f/1.9 lens made by Leica, and it’s paired to a phone that’s no slouch in other departments, either.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    That’s the plane Raven was talking about. As everyone is alluding to it’s still just a cut above my pay grade. Of course if it was a 4 cyl  prop Cessna it would still be above my pay grade.

    Also if that 757 had solid gold fixtures that would add a fair bit to the dead weight of the plane and would have been taken out and melted down for cash before now.

  175. 175.

    Kent

    @misterpuff:Trump is the Anti-Lannister.

    Yes, he’s the Ramsay Bolton of our tale.  Equal parts insane and cruel.  Now if only he will get himself eaten by vicious hunting dogs…

    Rudy is his Theon Greyjoy.

  176. 176.

    Kay

    @debbie:  I admire how much fun they had with it

    Next, let’s consider the County’s two separate forensic audits conducted in
    February of this year. You suggest that the Dominion proprietary password
    would have been necessary to conduct those audits. You are correct: it was.
    The forensic audit firms that the County hired, Pro V & V and SLI Compliance,
    are both accredited by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission as voting
    system testing laboratories. Because of that accredited status, signifying that
    these firms are specialists who have expertise with voting systems and
    understand how to audit them, Dominion Voting Systems provides Pro V & V
    and SLI Compliance with the necessary passwords to audit their machines.
    Your chosen “auditors,” the Cyber Ninjas, are certainly many things. But
    “accredited by the EAC” is not one of them. Regardless, we cannot give you
    a password that we do not possess any more than we can give you the
    formula for Coca Cola. We do not have it; we have no legal right to acquire it;
    and so, we cannot give it to you.

  178. 178.

    RaflW

    @Robert Sneddon: I’d bet he hasn’t paid for the sort maintenance regime that is needed to keep a long-stored airframe in good shape. And the COVID impacts on travel have meant that 757s (many of which were already nearing the end of their service lives) will continue to be retired from passenger flying.

    P2F conversions certainly will be part of that. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump’s basically ‘up on cinderblocks’ plane is riddled with wire-chewing vermin.

  179. 179.

    Raven

    @mrmoshpotato: most of the wahoo is gone, when you go on a charter you split a catch like that. I was fortunate because the guy who was first on the rod had a badly disabled hand and had no chance of landing it. I have probably 30 lbs of amberjack and other bottom fish vacuum packed and ready to go.

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Considering it’s age, I’d bet not. A freighter needs these days to carry a rather reasonable size cargo, most all in containers to be profitable and this one has a lot of flight hours so one only knows how much would have to be spent to convert it to a modern day freighter. It might not be worth the cost. But then I’m not paying for it so what the hell do I know.

  182. 182.

    Ruckus

    @Emma from Miami:

    I misunderstood. Sorry. I thought the 4 weeks ended in a couple of weeks. I did notice that my SS income statement for 2020 came a lot later than it usually does I’d bet covid had hurt them rather a lot, and TFG didn’t help much.

  183. 183.

    Gin & Tonic

    @RaflW: Long-term storage of disused airplanes is normally in the desert, for the obvious reasons. Orange County, New York, does not present such an environment. That 757 has sat there for two years now.

  184. 184.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    The extreme laziness is what gets me. They ask them a series of written questions that are basically “is this legal?” and then the supervisors cite the Arizona code.

    They’re sitting senators. Can’t they look it up? It would have taken less time than compiling the questions and waiting for a response.

    The response should have been two sentences. “You’re a senator. Go read the rules.”

  185. 185.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Low-quality fraudsters, nothing more. Depressing to think these guys run a state government.

  187. 187.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    a lot of people tweeting about Stephen Breyer today. Did he say something, or leak something, about not retiring? Or are people reacting to the Court taking the Mississippi case?

  189. 189.

    StringOnAStick

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Breyer said he won’t retire based on what party is in power because the Courts are above politics, and doing so would sully the sanctity of the USSC.  Must be nice on his alternative planet.

  191. 191.

    J R in WV

    @Emma from Miami:

      Going to do that tomorrow. I might even try to go in person but the complaints are fierce about lines and bad service.

    I got a mail request for information from SSA — evidently a change in our finance accounts resulted in a SS payment bouncing when a long-established account was deleted after BB&T merged with Suntrust.

    Anyway there was a phone number, and no address to mail the form to, so I called it. Not very long waiting, answering questions the computer asked me, and the person who answered was very helpful. I had to tell them my dad’s full name, my mom’s maiden name, lots of other details to be sure I was who I claimed to be.

    1-800-772-1213  might work for you too… during business hours. Good luck. I gave them the new account routing number and account number for deposits and all was good.

  193. 193.

    Mary G

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: He’s got a book about keeping politics out of the SC coming out, per the Hill.

    Harvard University Press has announced a new book by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer as court watching anticipate his retirement.

    Harvard University Press shared snippets of Breyer’s book “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.”

    The book shares details of Breyer’s time on the high court with a warning that public trust will be “eroded by political intervention, dashing the authority of the Court.”

    So clueless or demented or both.

  194. 194.

    Steeplejack

    @Emma from Miami:

    Probably worth a trip to your local Social Security office. I went to mine around the time that I applied because I needed to replace my long-lost physical Social Security card, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were able to handle some other things as well. (Can’t remember specifically what now.) Also able to “look on the computer” and see what the status of various things was.

    (Although maybe you have done this, since you mention talking to local reps.)

  195. 195.

    Another Scott

    Speaking (in an earlier thread) about employees and shortages and working conditions and pay, GovExec:

    […]

    I believe that over time, employers are going to lean toward having people work in the office because it promotes collaboration and innovation. But is that what workers want? According to a research survey by Gensler Research Institute, 71% of people prefer to have a hybrid arrangement or work entirely remotely going forward. Working remotely is attractive because it reduces commute time and gives people the most flexibility in their personal lives. Those benefits have been especially appreciated during the pandemic by parents with children at home and people who look after elderly family members. But those aren’t the only reasons. Research shows that people prefer to minimize their time in the office because most work cultures are not healthy or engaging. Working remotely has its challenges but at least you don’t have to endure office drama that is distracting or draining, or be around colleagues who are controlling or indifferent to you.

    Employers who want people in the office and also want to attract, engage and retain the best employees face a dilemma. Many of the best employees will prefer maximum flexibility to work where they choose and so they will favor employers who provide that flexibility. Requiring people to be at the office five days a week may be a deal breaker going forward.

    There is another option to consider: Offer employees the flexibility to work remotely part of the time yet make being in the office such a positive, inclusive and energizing experience that people want to be in the office together. Leaders can do this through cultivating a culture that is rich in relational connection.

    […]

    (Emphasis added.)

    This pandemic is scrambling a lot of what “everyone knows”. Smart people will forget the dogma and learn the correct lessons. Here’s hoping we have more smart people than Jinping and Jong-un and Viktor and Recep and Vlad and …

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  196. 196.

    Keith P.

    Remember when Devin Nunes tried to get Twitter to identify “Devin Nunes’ Cow” et al?  Since he failed, the Trump DOJ got a grand jury subpoena to get one of them. 

    Biden put the kibosh on it

    The Justice Department under President Trump secretly obtained a grand-jury subpoena last year in an attempt to identify the person behind a Twitter account dedicated to mocking Representative Devin Nunes of California, according to a newly unsealed court document.

  198. 198.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mary G: that is disappointing, living in a willful state of self-deception to build up his own ego

  199. 199.

    West of the Rockies

    @Raven:

    Wait, you sent a woman a picture of your big wahoo?  Last time I did that I got hit with a restraining order.

  201. 201.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Raven:

    most of the wahoo is gone, when you go on a charter you split a catch like that. 

    Ah.  Makes sense.

  202. 202.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:

    They’re too cowardly to come right out and say that anything fishy has gone on, but they are perfectly willing to ask a bunch of questions that strongly imply it.  It’s classic “I didn’t say you did something wrong; I’m just asking questions” BS.

  203. 203.

    J R in WV

    @Rocks: ​
     

    I visited my congressman’s local office. A very helpful staffer took a bunch of information and said they would get right on it.

    This is very true, most congress-critters have staff who can help with federal interactions. So if things don’t unroll for you correctly, contact your congress-critter and ask for help with the SSA.

  205. 205.

    Geminid

    @debbie: I expect most of these Republican statehouse goons are guys. But Arizona Senate Majority Leader Fann is actually a woman. Her first name is Karen. And she would like to speak to the Maricopa County Supervisors’ manager.

  206. 206.

    TomatoQueen

    @Ruckus:

     

    @Emma from Miami:  Re SSA: I’m an SSA employee (disability side, not retirement) and strongly strongly strongly recommend that you spend your searching time on ssa.gov, being sure you have registered and fully activated  your myssa.gov account. Take the time to explore the site, as it is updated regularly as online services are tested and then released to the public. Most field and administrative offices are closed to the public at this time, and at today’s conference call we were told there are no plans  to open again any time soon. Expect delays to continue as we are understaffed, keep all your records handy, and try to remember there are thousands of people ahead of you. We have to keep up with almost a year’s worth of backlog in all services and programs–one case at a time, as always. I could go on and on but one more rant that is more important than anything: the Republicans in congress have had this agency on starvation funding for many years, and the result of that is chronic delay and shortage in every aspect, starting with enough staff to do the work, going to infrastructure, including IT, central planning, and cooperation with other entities such as the IRS and the Postal Service. During the pandemic a lot of staff time has been spent on reworking, reinventing, working around work processes to continue any service we can online. Anything that must be done in person or by mail is slowed further, and there are always the data security and integrity aspects which come first. I can say after a year of this that my job is totally different from what it used to be a year ago & in fact it’s actually better. But it’s taken total lockdown to review and change, all while trying to equal our past service levels. Turns out this was a good thing in some technical ways, but we can’t do the face-to-face stuff we used to, and for the foreseeable future online service is where it’s going to be.  myssa.gov passwords, if not used after a certain time, expire. So login to your account frequently.

  207. 207.

    Another Scott

    ScienceMag:

    On 27 June 1918, two young German soldiers—one age 18, the other 17—died in Berlin from a new influenza strain that had emerged earlier that year. Their lungs ended up in the collection of the Berlin Museum of Medical History, where they rested, fixed in formalin, for 100 years. Now, researchers have managed to sequence large parts of the virus that infected the two men, giving a glimpse into the early days of the most devastating pandemic of the 20th century. The partial genomes hold some tantalizing clues that the infamous flu strain may have adapted to humans between the pandemic’s first and second waves.

    The researchers also managed to sequence an entire genome of the pathogen from a young woman who died in Munich at an unknown time in 1918. It is only the third full genome of the virus that caused that pandemic and the first from outside North America, the authors write in a preprint posted on bioRxiv.

    “It’s absolutely fantastic work,” says Hendrik Poinar, who runs an ancient DNA lab at McMaster University. “The researchers have made reviving RNA viruses from archival material an achievable goal. Not long ago this was, like much ancient DNA work, a fantasy.”

    […]

    The pace of understanding of these things is absolutely amazing. But there’s still a mountain of stuff that needs to be learned.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  208. 208.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    but they are perfectly willing to ask a bunch of questions that strongly imply it.

    It doesn’t even work as that, though. They don’t know the first thing about how this works, or even what has transpired.

    “Why are the seals on the ballot bags broken?’
    “because we had to open them to recanvass”.

    They can’t even do the simplest thing. The record says there should be 200 in one batch. The “ninjas” counted 218. But these ballots exist! The 18 they mistakenly added do not exist. Unless they literally create 18 more ballots we know their count is wrong.
    If they had said “there’s 182 and the log says 200” that could be portrayed as hinky. But they added more! They’re either there or they’re not.

  209. 209.

    patroclus

    I realize I’m behind just about everyone here and I also understand that this is probably a dead thread, but I got my first dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine today!  My arm hurts  (waaah)!!  But I’m glad to do it because I want to start going maskless soon.

  214. 214.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @Emma from Miami:

    @Ruckus:

    SSA suffers from the same problem many other federal agencies have had since 2010: funding the federal government by continuing resolutions instead of well-considered budgets means endless attrition, especially as people get fed up with the workload and either retire or find other jobs.

    If you haven’t heard by the end of the week and you feel your Congressional Rep’s (I’d say Senator, but oh, my!) local office is reliable, ask them to check for you. That tends to get some kind of answer, whether it’s “This should be completed before the end of the month,” or “I just checked the system and the letter goes out today.”

  217. 217.

    TomatoQueen

    @Sure Lurkalot:  I’m glad the process worked for you. There’s years’ worth of effort behind putting face-to-face processes online, well before lockdown, so that we are able to process standard and complex cases entirely online means that there’s a little more wiggle-room for complicated situations and thus a little more time. Not much though, and the hardest thing to adjust to is having to be at least in part responsible for your case without a claims specialist guiding you in person. It’s just not the way SSA has done business–but suddenly there is a huge advantage to it and that will become more apparent in future.There’s some comments above about working at home and how it’s all going to change. Whether these working conditions will be more widespread and permanent could depend on whether there are tangible or auditable results. At SSA where some sort of telework has been in effect since 2010, our managers worked hard at collecting case production data from the beginning, and we can show that employees get more cases finished correctly when they telework. We have 10 years of good data, plus the pandemic  which instituted global telework, so there’s real credibility there. I have hopes that the processes will get better.​​​
      BUT THEY CERTAINLY WON’T if people keep calling about a process that is already delayed and will not speed up with the interruptions of further phone calls that in wait time average about 40 minutes already.

  220. 220.

    glc

    @Citizen Alan:

    “Marxist” simply means “anyone opposed to white supremacy.”

    Go back far enough and there’s a long history of that being true, practically speaking, as far as the U.S. political spectrum is concerned. Something that Paul Robeson and J. Edgar Hoover agreed on, though they drew different conclusions from it.

    Before my time (just barely, it was still the case when I was born).

    You also had people like Mencken being surprisingly non-racist – he made the argument, explicitly, that one shouldn’t abandon the right side of any issue to the communists.

  222. 222.

    Steeplejack

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    On the same day that the 6-3 conservative court issued some ominous rulings, Harvard University Press announced Breyer’s forthcoming book, The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics.

    Description:

    A sitting justice reflects upon the authority of the Supreme Court—how that authority was gained and how measures to restructure the Court could undermine both the Court and the constitutional system of checks and balances that depends on it.

    A growing chorus of officials and commentators argues that the Supreme Court has become too political. On this view the confirmation process is just an exercise in partisan agenda-setting, and the jurists are no more than “politicians in robes”—their ostensibly neutral judicial philosophies mere camouflage for conservative or liberal convictions. As a result of this perceived crisis, and for the first time since the New Deal era, there is serious talk of court packing in the name of ideological balance.

    Justice Stephen Breyer sounds a cautionary note. Mindful of the Court’s history, he suggests that the judiciary’s hard-won authority would be marred by reforms premised on the assumption of ideological bias. Having, as Hamilton observed, “no influence over either the sword or the purse,” the Court earned its authority by dispensing impartial justice and thereby accumulating public trust. If public trust is now in decline, the solution is to promote better understanding of how the judiciary actually works: overwhelmingly, judges adhere to their oath to avoid considerations of politics and popularity. The peril facing the Supreme Court comes less from partisan judges than from citizens who, encouraged by politicians, equate impartial justice with agreeable judicial outcomes.

    Breyer warns that public trust would be eroded by political intervention, dashing the authority of the Court. Without the public’s trust, the Court would no longer be able to act as a check on the other branches of government and a guarantor of the rule of law, threatening the foundations of our constitutional system.

    Legal Twitter went nuts, predictably. @southpaw: “The Court’s history in this country is woven with factionalism and stained with blood. Breyer thinks they’ve been banking public trust?” And many commenters pointed out that Breyer must be clueless to the point of dotage to not notice how several of his newest colleagues arrived on the court.

  223. 223.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Rachel Maddow’s opening segment on the history of incompetence and MAGAty corruption in the Secret Service is terrifying. Among other issues: trump made the head of his detail a deputy chief-of-staff who helped organize rallies and was a key player in clearing out Lafayette Square for the upside-down bible photo op. When trump left the White House, this goober went back to the SS, where he’s now in charge of training.

    Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D @RVAwonk 3h
    Holy crap. Secret Service agents reportedly *defended* the attack on the Capitol on social media after Jan. 6, @CarolLeonnig reports in her new book, according to @maddow. Some agents also reportedly had MAGA stuff up in their offices & some questioned the election’s legitimacy.

  226. 226.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Raven:

    It looks like you can fully extend our arms outward when someone asks how big it was…lol!

    Congrats on the snag!

  227. 227.

    Mo Salad

    @Kristine: ​
     The tax software that our firm uses allows for us to ask the IRS to notify the taxpayer when the return has been accepted. It is not a default option, though. You have to tell us to do it. Read those organizers your CPA sends you and fill them out, people.

    Note: Accepted just means that your data is received and your return is considered filed. It does not mean that it is free from future examination, correction, or informational matching (1099) notices.

  228. 228.

    evodevo

    @Raven:  Ours were e-filed, and the first hint I got that they had been turned in was when our refund hit the bank account…no notice of anything…

  230. 230.

    TomatoQueen

    @Steeplejack: 
    Thank you for asking after him, but no, there is no sign of him. I’m trying not to be a sobbing pile of uselessness, and failing.

  231. 231.

    Ruckus

    @TomatoQueen:

    My account always expires between times I have any reason to check in and it is a stone bitch to even attempt to get back in. The only way I’ve ever gotten back in is to go to an office and have the staff clear the way. I’m pretty good with computer stuff and the only place I have any issues with is SSA. And that includes other federal sites. OTOH, my deposits are made every month and the office people have been great. The website works like crap and it feels like it was written by 2 people who took a computer course at night school a bazillion yrs ago. And got a D. So overall I’d give the SSA a C-. Just a personal opinion.

  232. 232.

    Ruckus

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio:

    I answered TomatoQueen on this. I’ve been directly involved with SSA for 9 yrs now as a client and while I’ll give anyone that actually works for the federal government a break for the last 4 yrs of total fucking assholes in the upper lack of management segment of the executive branch, the SSA has been the same from a customer stand point my entire 9 yr exposure. Great in person, 3 different offices, great in OA product, the web site is useless. It’s like it’s designed so that no one can access anything. It’s safe because it never exposes the SSA to any outside access. And yes I have an account, I know my password and my security questions and it still redirects me to bullshit every time. Even when my password hasn’t expired. Which it does at random, not just the 6 months it is supposed to.

  234. 234.

    TomatoQueen

    @Ruckus: I agree with you totally. The impenetrability is a feature, not a bug, however, because of SSA’s responsibility for well over 300 million accounts. That’s your data, for your entire life, and you don’t want some moron fiddling with it. Combined with many other factors, a nearly endless list in my 20 years in gov’t, SSA does IT security better than any non-military agency, and the sacrifice is actual usefulness  for the public, which is shocking cos the public is used to convenience and wouldn’t know security if it called up and said hi (especially not then). MySSA.gov is how the agency will be doing business, so be ready to login, not fat-finger, and change your password. We almost went with fingerprints at one point, too expensive, the most often used reason why we can’t have something. I’m still recovering from a staff conference on all interim quarterly meeting, in which we were told why something won’t happen. Can’t they just do an email? NO.

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