“I did it for Carla – to show her how much I love her and to thank her for all she has given me,” Bozzini said. “I wasn’t able to see her in hospital and so went to the courtyard with the accordion – my heart told me to go. After she heard the music she looked out of the window, so at least I got to see her.”
…………………………………………
“She was so in love with that song, I play it all the time at home,” he said. “I played others that everyone knows, one song after the other, I didn’t stop. A lot of the sick people in the hospital were looking out of their windows.”
………………………………..
“I love music, and when I play the accordion it brings fun and happiness everywhere,” he said. “What is happening in the world right now is so horrible we need music to help lift the spirits.”
First 1 million cases = ~100 days
Last 1 million cases = 10 days!!!!!
It’s not due to testing. You can test all you want in Vietnam, Taiwan, S. Korea and you find anywhere near this burden of disease. It’s due to not testing, not believing, not acting
Faheem Younus, MD
@FaheemYounus
Myth: Spiking COVID cases are due to testing. “I don’t see increased hospitalizations”
Fact: Previously US COVID hospitalizations peaked on April 15 at 60,000
Now, 62,000. A new record
A postal worker whose allegations of ballot tampering are the basis of Republican calls for investigations has reportedly recanted his story.
Democrats on the House oversight committee said that Richard Hopkins – the worker who claimed in a signed affidavit that a supervisor at the US Postal Service (USPS) in Erie, Pennsylvania, instructed staff to tamper with ballots by backdating ones that arrived late – had recanted the allegations in an interview with investigators for the USPS Inspector General.
Investigators told the committee that Hopkins “did not explain why he signed a false affidavit”, the committee wrote in a statement.
Given that it’s Veterans Day, will our soon-to-be-former Commander-in-Chief be emerging from his bunker to commemorate the occasion? Or will he be treating those losers and suckers who served and died with the contempt they deserve by ignoring it?
This is a very good synopsis of how absentee ballots are counted and matches very closely to what I remember from state politics (although unlike him, I never had to be the witness).
Telling excerpt:
First, some background. The NM GOP operated under the impression that every election was tainted by Democrats stuffing ballot boxes. In their hearts they knew there is no way they could lose big races if they were fair. They talked about it openly. It didn’t make it true, but that’s just how it was. Sound familiar?
Now, I was also in charge of the statewide voter file for the party and did the election analysis after every election. I knew the outcome of every election for more than a decade and actively looked for anomalies in the numbers. They just didn’t exist. That’s not to say no fraud happened. In New Mexico, nearly every cycle saw someone in Española go to jail for rigging an election — typically over a very small handful of votes.
So I can tell you from the outset of this that fraud DOES happen, but not at the scale or in the way that is alleged by the GOP.
@CSK: “What is the downside of walking into the WH and slapping the piss out of the spoiled rotten brat, making him sit in the 25th Amendment corner and do a 2 and half month time out?”
I saw a Wu-Tang sign in an unexpected place yesterday.
Hanging off the richiest house on a richey-rich block.
Freaked me out in a good way. Wu-Tang Clan is for the children. Made my day.
I was walking to Mercy to get tested. Felt like shite for 5 days. Flu adjacent. Took a cab home. It was only 3 miles -I normally walk 4 miles or so most days- but I was spent. Went home. Crashed hard. Vivid dreams.
@CSK: Supposedly, he is going to Arlington cemetery.
Minor beef. You go to Arlington for Memorial Day. Veterans’s Day is for people who served in the Armed Forces. Memorial Day for those who died in service to country. Armed Forces Day is for those currently serving.
@Scott:
Oh, I know. But does Trump know?
@Mikey:
It always struck me as interesting that Trump, who is so infatuated with military display, should be so dismissive of actual fighting men and women.
Ari Berman
@AriBerman
·
12h
Truly staggering to see the party that gutted Voting Rights Act, sabotaged USPS, closed polling places, purged voters, attacked mail voting, tried to throw out ballots & fabricated evidence under oath accuse the other side of cheating
It always struck me as interesting that Trump, who is so infatuated with military display, should be so dismissive of actual fighting men and women.
He is incapable of understanding or comprehending anyone who serves a cause larger than themselves. In his mind, service before self is contemptible, an indicator of weakness. This is why he stood at the graves in Arlington and asked “what was in it for them?” He simply can’t grasp the concept.
But all the pageantry and spiffy uniforms and tanks and jets, those reflect glory on him. So all that, he loves. He just doesn’t hold any respect for the ” losers and suckers” who make it possible.
Gravatar is the path to an avatar. How good that avatar is, that’s up to you.
I first happened upon my chimp in one of the NBA 2K games. I and a buddy of mine had dynasty teams. I moved OKC to Baltimore and was looking through the various logos users uploaded. I saw him. I loved him.
Side note: I had no idea where it came from. I googled “chimp with a blunt” to no avail. I then tried “pimp chimp.” Nailed it! DeviantArt.
—
When I was in New Orleans a couple weeks ago, I saw a campaign-style yard sign that read:
@CSK: “It always struck me as interesting that Trump, who is so infatuated with military display, should be so dismissive of actual fighting men and women.”
Hollow false machismo. Trump is the guy who always kicks down.
Note that the heart of his ‘Sir, (tears)’ stories is brave strong men reduced to crying by Trump’s actions, sobbing their gratitude that Trump saved them. He knows that he’ll never get their honest respect, and resents it.
@Mikey: @Barry:
Yup. You both called it exactly right.
On a slightly different topic, it occurred to me this morning that not only will Trump refuse to attend Biden’s inauguration, but he might well stage a competing rally. Would you put it past him? Then he’d try to brag that he got bigger numbers than Biden.
I said I’d talk about beginner’s luck if Biden won.
Beginner’s luck is very real, it just doesn’t happen to all beginners. But any person starting out in some kind of competitive endeavor, be it sports, gambling, or something else, has a chance of doing better than average on their first try, due to random factors.
A beginner who gets lucky at craps, say, may then think they’re particularly good at it and play lots more. but eventually the real odds of the game catch up and they lose money.
This actually happened to me. After my second trip to Vegas I still didn’t quite get how craps worked. So I downloaded a simulator at home and played. I have never again either in simulation or real life, had such a run of good luck.
I nearly signed up to an online casino, but I realized in time such luck wouldn’t necessarily hold out (besides all other issues with quasi-illegal online gambling). So I just played some more on the simulator over the next year (and lost more than I won, as expected; but now I knew how to play).
Trump met a series of contributing factors on his road to a surprise victory in 2016. Like the death of Beau Biden in 2015, which led to his father not running on that cycle. Comey’s letter late in the campaign, which we all know about. Having an opponent both known and strongly disliked who generated little enthusiasm in her own party*. And more that we know about, plus what we still haven’t figured out.
He seems to have fallen for the fallacy that his skill alone mattered.
@Kathy: Kathy, I’m curious about something. I’ve never had any interest in gambling whatsoever, at least where the games are predominantly chance. And that lack of interest becomes absolute when a casino is involved, because they are definitely not going to run anything worth more than a nickel slot that favors the citizen. You know all this and from the comments above know that Lady Luck isn’t a thing, and that a good feeling won’t make the dice roll in your favor. So what’s the appeal?
The adrenalin rush that comes with a winning hand and a big pot. Of course that is soon followed by the sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach when you big time lose the next one.
@MarkedMan: I would imagine the resident Trumpies are submersing in the swamp with their own kind for the time being. They all gotta get their talking points straight.
What’s the appeal of playing Monopoly, say, or other board games? you won’t make money, right? Same with gambling.
Still, there are some advantage games here and there. there was a full pay Deuces Wild video poker machine at The D. It pays 100.6% with perfect strategy. The strategy is rather simple, and you can print it out and consult it any time. I was ahead about $600 on that machine by my last trip in 2015. Unfortunately ti was a nickel machine, so the payoffs were low (but so was the bankroll required to spend hours on it).
There are a few Not So Ugly Ducks at the Main Street Station and El Cortez. They pay 99.72%, again with perfect strategy. On average you’ll lose money, but can hit a four deuces jackpot or two with good variance (ie luck). Add perks form the players club, and it might be worth it.
@Kathy:
Beginner’s luck also has a huge dose of Achievements in Ignorance to help it along. It’s not unusual for a beginner to beat someone who’s been doing something for years simply because they’re so unpredictable and will take inadvisable actions. Anyone with some knowledge on a subject would be constrained by “don’t do that, it’s stupid and won’t work”. Newbie doesn’t know any better, tries it and finds it sometimes will work – it’s stupid to do because it *mostly* won’t work or be more harmful than helpful. They just beat the averages.
Beginner’s luck kinda requires that ignorance to work. You go in blind and let the numbers fall as they may. You get a higher percentage of people with great outcomes and so people assume it’s luckier. Nope, they’re more likely to take a dumb risk and reap the reward.
The other day AOC lashed out at Dem moderates about their criticism of Dem progressives and made some very accurate points about the failures of Dem mods. Unfortunately her points and defense of defund the police don’t counter mod criticisms of the left. This morning it is Tlaib who is lashing out.
Much of the left, exists in a bubble that is as hermetically sealed as that of the right. This is particularly true of some younger congress critters and those more recently stepping forward into leadership positions. Alas, they are not learning from the former New Left, circa 1960’s who didn’t listen to the advice of the Old Left, circa 1930’s. So the wheel turns.
I’ve only gambled at a casino once (a one-week stretch). I was with some friends in the Dominican Republic and the resort had a casino. We went 5 times and all I did was play roulette.
I walked out with more than I came in with every night except one–where I walked out with the same amount.
I placed lots of safe bets–winning or losing a dollar or two each time–and then a dollar on each of 0 and 00. The key was that I started with $50. If I ever made it up to $75, the original $50 went into my pocket and never came out. If I made it over $75 a second time, I did the same thing. The problem people have with gambling is not knowing when to quit.
Summarizing the key lessons that Democrats should take away from election results that were much less favorable than expected, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D–Va.) reportedly told fellow members of her caucus during a conference call on Thursday that they shouldn’t say the word socialism “ever again.”
AOC’s district is something like D+40. Spanberger’s was held by a Republican and is a R+6.
These two are talking past one another because their districts look NOTHING ALIKE. AOC shouldn’t be advising Spanberger on what she should or shouldn’t do.
Unifying Dem messages need to be so broad that they actually match what both district populations are thinking, so “yay, jobs” and “we need to have trusted leadership” is about it.
I’m surprised. I’ve used Gravitar quite a bit (I set up avatars for an entire department once). Unless something has changed, I was very easy to use. Add e-mail address, click the “upload” and select the image you want.
FWIW, my avatar just appeared there from the start when I put in my email address (it’s gmail). One time I used the work address by mistake, and the avatar didn’t show up.
@Jen: “These two are talking past one another because their districts look NOTHING ALIKE. AOC shouldn’t be advising Spanberger on what she should or shouldn’t do.”
Actually, if any of the reflexive left-bashers around here bothered to read what AOC said to Spanberger, it was that most of the Dems who were defeated put the vast majority of their resources into TV, almost entirely ignoring both online advertising and in-person contacts. She didn’t say that the Spanbergers of the world should run on her agenda — unlike the moderates who are offended by the fact they have to share a party with anyone who isn’t in lockstep agreement with them — but that they should try to run a 21st century campaign. She also said she offered help in this regard to all Dem incumbents, and the six or so who took her up on it won their districts.
Now, please, go back to telling us how childish the left is. For some reason, that seems to make you feel good.
AOC also said that there should be more permanent infrastructure because what infrastructure the democratic party used to rely on has been incredibly weakened or no longer exists (specifically: unions).
This is something that’s been my pet peeve for some time. The DNC under Howard Dean was trying to build out state and local parties and was making some real headway, but then he was bounced from the DNC in 2008 and they reverted to an ineffective strategy.
I don’t know what Tom Perez has been doing, but from the looks of the results, I’d say that he wasn’t doing enough.
This is what Tlaib, AOC and others deny, that what they want doesn’t have universal appeal and why they’ll never get a sliver of what they want. I suspect that in about 30 years, these Dem leftists are going to look back like Ted Kennedy did after the Clinton universal healthcare plan died ignominiously and admit that he should have take Nixon up on Nixon’s plan for universal coverage.
I tried thirteen separate images explicitly searched for under “free gravatar jpeg images” from five sites. Went to the native page for that image. Copied the address to my clipboard. I even hand copied one address and typed it in. Same error message.
Backtracked, made sure the basics were square. Deleted everything off my clipboard.
Every attempt gave the same error message. I did permutations on settings. Same message.
I got pissed off initially that I had to establish a WordPress account to access the service. Twice as it turned out.
Nope. Not worth it.
I could not accomplish the simplest task – select an image.
re: On a slightly different topic, it occurred to me this morning that not only will Trump refuse to attend Biden’s inauguration, but he might well stage a competing rally. Would you put it past him? Then he’d try to brag that he got bigger numbers than Biden.
Scary Thought Of The Day:
He might well stage his own inauguration. There is no requirement the swearing-in of a POTUS has to be done by the Chief Justice, any judge can do it.
I tried thirteen separate images explicitly searched for under “free gravatar jpeg images” from five sites. Went to the native page for that image. Copied the address to my clipboard.
I found an image I could legally use, copied it to my computer, and uploaded that .gif file when creating the avatar. No addresses involved.
@OzarkHillbilly: I think I’m lucky then. I get no adrenaline rush whatsoever. I consider the whole thing mind-numbingly boring. I find casinos to be loud obnoxious eyesores that have zero attraction, and I’m mad every time a trade show or conference that I have to attend picks Las Vegas as their site. The first few times I went I walked around the floor, learned the games, and watched the people. At this point I don’t really have any interest in watching the people any more.
I like a good private game of poker though, if the stakes are high enough to make people take it seriously but low enough they aren’t risking the mortgage payment. And if I have an excuse to leave before we get into the goofy games segment. I don’t even like playing with wild cards, much less sticking cards to your forehead.
@dazedandconfused:
I hadn’t thought of that, but the fact that it didn’t occur to me doesn’t mean it wouldn’t occur to Trump. He might have a problem getting even a pro-Trump judge to go along with it.
@dazedandconfused:
Nope – money. Trump wouldn’t settle for a Bible in the lobby of a hotel – he’d want a scene. Even the dumber ones are going to figure out the federal spigot gets cut off in two months and Trump’s notorious for not paying bills even with the government’s dime. Anybody with the cash to pay for something like that won’t because of the legal ramifications (that’s actual sedition and treason right there) and because they know they won’t get the money back. Where’s the profit in declaring him POTUS-in-Exile when the lawyers are frantically waving you off? It’s *real* hard to argue in court that getting a judge (or even a “judge” from the internet) to administer the Oath of Office to the loser of an election in a big public to-do near the legal Inauguration timeframe is a “joke” or “satire” or “publicity stunt”; any lawyer with a single brain cell will tell you that’s a BAD idea. What’s the money angle? Wingnut welfare exists to make cash and generate power but all that would do is feed the lawyers and bail bondsmen for a few more weeks.
@charon:
I think it’s more a reflection of her age than her talent. It’s 2020 and media is where the GOP is strongest. TV, social media, memes, you name it – Dems suck at messaging and particularly suck at getting the message out to the right people. Preach all you want in NYC but it’s the guy in rural GA we need to get and keep. Social media can be both targeted and blanket in a way TV networks aren’t. She speaks Tweet like Trump does; she understands FB ads and posts get more attention than ads you can skip over on TV with tech now.
Her flavor of liberalism aside, it was foolish to ignore a younger, more tech-savvy pol’s advice on how to reach people. Help is help and the DNC needs to start getting with the times, ASAP.
@Barry: the stories of Trump and John Kelly at military graveyards, and Trump saying, why did they die, what was in it for them? Buncha Losers.
I’d like to think I’d have had the balls/ovaries to try, if I were Kelly, to strangle him to death on the spot. I wonder if the Secret Service would have reacted urgently.
One-term loser Trump already tried that, in a way, by blaming the Obama administration for not leaving a full supply of PPE stockpiled for his use, among other things which also failed to resonate even with his supporters.
I like a good private game of poker though, if the stakes are high enough to make people take it seriously but low enough they aren’t risking the mortgage payment. And if I have an excuse to leave before we get into the goofy games segment. I don’t even like playing with wild cards, much less sticking cards to your forehead.
Our regular homegame has migrated online. Let me know if you’re interested in joining, depending on your stakes preferences. Even at the relatively small stakes we play, everyone takes it pretty seriously. Some of us are willing to go higher as well.
Trump was late to Arlington and missed the important part of the ceremony. He only stayed for 6 freaking minutes. He made servicemen and women, vets and the elderly wait for his ass in the rain, couldn’t be bothered to show up for the meaningful part and left before the driver could find a parking spot.
But hey red America, this is who you wanted for another 4 years! Support the troops…. for a few seconds. Yay!
@KM: I’m not sure there isn’t talent there. Maybe talent honed by virtue of her younger age and experience being online, but she does seem pretty quick witted online and IRL. And she does seem to understand that the same message that sells in her district doesn’t necessarily sell in other districts.
Hey, remember when folks kept trying to tell us that the Proud Boys *wasn’t* a white nationalism org? Sure seems like a lot of high ranking members seem to drift in that direction:
@Kurtz: Thanks for the offer, and I may take you up on it in the future. Right now, though, I’m so swamped with work and keeping up with personal life that I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to even keep a date.
By the way, how does an on-line computer game even work? I assume there’s a web app somewhere that deals the cards?
In the imagined scenario of John Roberts swearing in Biden on one side of the field while Judge Judy (or whatever, he can certainly find one crazy judge somewhere) swears in Trump on the other side, Trump would be asserting that the Supreme Court (John Roberts) has no authority to decide the issue and the issue is to be decided by the Pentagon. This would explain the frantic placing of toadies within the DOD right now.
If he tries to stage his faux inaugural, it will be in DC as his hotel there is sold out and he won’t want to give up that revenue. Considering no one looking to attend Joe’s inaugural will stay there.
If you’re going to be trapped in Vegas again, let me know. there are other things to do besides gambling (and shows). Like the conservatory at the Bellagio (and the fountains out front), a bird exhibit at the Flamingo, a small zoo and dolphin pool at the Mirage, Rides atop the Stratosphere tower, the mini replica of the Eiffel tower at Paris, and lots and lots of shopping.
Off the Strip you may want to visit the Atomic Testing Museum, and the Mob Museum.
To simplify further, we can break the electorate into four types, based on their position in the four quadrants of Figure 2:
Liberal (44.6 percent): Lower left, liberal on both economic and identity issues
Populist (28.9 percent): Upper left, liberal on economic issues, conservative on identity issues
Conservative (22.7 percent): Upper right, conservative on both economic and identity issues
Libertarian (3.8 percent): Lower right, conservative on economics, liberal on identity issues
In my view, capturing some of the populist vote via targeted economic messaging specifically to rural white dude is the path to take.
If the message seems like economic policy to address social justice, then that demographic ignores the policies that benefit them. But if the messaging is centered on economic struggles they can relate to, different ball game.
Oh, yeah, that’s amazing, too. If you have half a day free, it may be worth taking a tour.
BTW, Ivanka is celebrating on Twitter Trump’s win in Alaska. That’s like celebrating a field goal when you’re seventeen points behind with one second left on the clock.
Anytime. There is a game most evenings/nights. We use a webapp that deals. Exchange money via app. We keep the same table open and transfer ownership if need be. The nice thing about that is that the cash in/out and hand histories are available to anyone at the table, even if you weren’t at the table for a session.
Whoever is the owner for the night takes the money (venmo/cashapp) before folks are allowed to sit. Payout when you leave the table. It works pretty well.
It’s worth revisiting an article I’ve discussed here before, a mid-2019 Washington Monthly piece titled “How Trump Could Lose the Election and Remain President.” The hypothetical scenario it lays out looks incredibly prescient now, especially considering it was written before the pandemic, before the ramping up of VBM, before it was even known who the Dem nominee would be:
It is Wednesday morning, November 4, 2020. At 7:15 a.m., after a stressful night of watching the returns trickle in, the Associated Press projects that the Democratic presidential candidate will win Pennsylvania, and, with it, the presidency. Sure enough, it’s a narrow victory–279 electoral votes to 258. When all is said and done, the Democrat wins Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania by only about 77,000 votes combined, the same amount Trump won those states by in 2016.
Donald Trump, who spent the past five months warning about fraud, has been eerily silent for most of the night. But as soon as the Democrat takes the stage to give her victory speech, he unleashes a barrage of tweets claiming that over 100,000 illegal immigrants voted in Michigan and that Philadelphia kept its polls open for hours later than allowed. “Without PHONY voters, I really won!” he tweets. “This is FRAUD!” Needless to say, the president does not call to congratulate his opponent. At an afternoon press conference, Trump’s press secretary announces he will not concede….
After forty-eight hours of silence, the Senate majority leader issues a terse press release in which he says he “recognizes the president’s serious concerns” about the election’s integrity. Some GOP representatives do break ranks and call for Trump to concede (I’m looking at you, Mitt Romney), but most stay silent or back the president’s claims. In a monumental act of gaslighting, Lindsey Graham tells reporters that Democrats are the ones undermining democracy. “They are afraid of a thorough investigation into the fairness of this election,” he declares. “They’ll stop at nothing to get this president out of office.” ….
Almost everyone I spoke with told me that, at this point, the election results would be challenged in court. The Trump campaign might sue Democratic-leaning counties for alleged “irregularities” and ask that judges toss out their results. “I can imagine the litigation in Pennsylvania taking the form of saying voting booths in Philadelphia were held open an excessively long time, an unlawfully long time, or the vote counters in some Democratic-leaning county unlawfully refused to count late-filed absentee ballots,” Tushnet said. Victory for Trump would “mean throwing out the ballots and saying that when those are thrown out, Trump gets the state’s electoral votes.” That, in turn, would allow him to remain president.
This argument, and the many others that the Trump campaign could employ, would almost certainly be specious. But Tushnet cautioned against underestimating the power of creative attorneys and motivated reasoning. The legal justification for challenging the returns would develop, he said, “in some ways that we can’t really anticipate now but that lawyers will come up with when it matters.”
Of course, Trump’s legal challenges in the real world appear to be completely fizzling. In fairness, the article suggests that the scenario it outlines is unlikely to succeed. One obvious difference with the current situation is that Biden didn’t just rebuild the blue wall, he also expanded the map with his (still not official but probable) wins in GA and AZ. That’s made Trump’s attempts to overturn the results seem even more quixotic.
Still, the article’s description of how Trump would react to losing and how much the rest of the GOP would play along (such as McConnell, Graham, and Romney) is dead-on.
Now, please, go back to telling us how childish the left is. For some reason, that seems to make you feel good.
I genuinely have no idea where this came from. I’ve never said the left is childish, and didn’t even come close to implying that. I read AOC’s statement, and her main gripe appeared to be that Dems didn’t sink more money into digital…but again, that’s going to vary depending on the makeup of the district.
I really, really despise it when the circular firing squads come out. But, it happens every time. Right wingers complain that Republican moderates are losing because they aren’t adhering to conservative lines. Progressives complain that Democratic moderates are losing because they aren’t exciting the base enough. This simply isn’t true. It’s just harder to win moderate districts because they can and do flip back and forth. I live in NH-1, which is *notorious* for switching party almost every cycle.
it occurred to me this morning that not only will Trump refuse to attend Biden’s inauguration, but he might well stage a competing rally. Would you put it past him? Then he’d try to brag that he got bigger numbers than Biden.
Given that Biden will observe COVID protocols, if Trump does hold a rally he’s almost guaranteed a large in-person crowd.
@Jen: Didn’t mean you specifically, sorry. Yours was just the one in the string of messages I responded to. There is definitely a set of lefty-bashers around here, and I was reacting to them…
@Jen: ” Progressives complain that Democratic moderates are losing because they aren’t exciting the base enough”
Sure, but this particular circular firing squad started when one moderate started shouting in a conference call about how all the terrible leftists said these terribly left things and that undermined all the moderates. In this case it was a moderate demanding that anyone to her left not run to and for their own base in case it annoys hers.
Sure, son! No need for apologies. You and I are on several identical wavelengths, one of them being slang like that. You need not worry much about offending me–there are a few things I let bother me if I’m already in a bad mood. Otherwise, it’s pretty tough to offend me.
@Mu Yixiao: Your Reason(sic) link doesn’t mention any instance of a D actually saying “socialism”. The squad may have at some point, but it doesn’t matter. Republicans have been calling Dems “socialists” since forever, back to the 30s at least. Rs are going to lie about Ds being socialists, and commies, no matter what Ds actually do or say.
Democrats generally, and Biden specifically, haven’t said the truth. That this country needs a good dose of democratic socialism.
The number of actual, for real, socialists in this country could probably hold a convention in a decent size Starbucks, if they were open. No one who matters is advocating for government ownership of the means of production, although GOPs would have us believe all Ds do. Hence my use of “democratic socialism” above.
@Jen: These two are talking past one another because their districts look NOTHING ALIKE. AOC shouldn’t be advising Spanberger on what she should or shouldn’t do.
As best I can tell, the only thing AOC advised Spanberger to do is to not blame her for Spanberger’s campaign’s short comings. Which I have to say I pretty much agree with.
Really, I see a whole lot of people (both professional and wkend warrior politicians) trying to blame a first term congress critter from a +40 D NYC district for the losses of a few DEM candidates running in +R districts in podunk Ohio or weebok IL, and it’s horseshit. You lost your race? Look in the mirror and you’ll see the #1 reason why. Learn from that and do better next time. Don’t blame AOC or Tlaib or Omar.
I mean, I haven’t heard any Republicans blame Louie Gohmert or Steve King for Martha McSally’s 2 in a row losses in AZ, and they all thought she was the perfect senatorial candidate for AZ.
@gVOR08:
Oh, of course. That’s why I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he already has plans for an Inauguration Day rally in the works.
He really can’t hold a counter-inaugural, much as he’d probably like to do so. But yes, I can see him holding a rally. Maybe he can get Newsmax and OANN to televise it, because even Fox will be at the Biden ceremony.
@Mu Yixiao: I found it horrible too, but I am not “intuitive” at all. There are just some computer things that I just can’t see. My wife comes in and beep boop beep bop and it’s all done. I pull out my framing hammer and…
@MarkedMan: I’m with you. Many years ago I found myself in a few high stakes games and I didn’t like it. The thing was, none of them started out high stakes, they just went that way without my realizing it until… Not fun. I’ve never been inside a casino either, and never will be.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think a lot of Dems can’t really deal with the fact that so Americans willingly chose a con artist and terrible human being. They did it, on purpose. It’s so hard to see people intentionally make horrible choices that it’s easier to rationalize something must be wrong with you instead. I mean, they chose the shit sandwich so the ham must look rotten or something, right? Mold on the bread, a funny smell, green and oozy? There *has* to be something wrong with the alternative because otherwise it means people willingly eat shit and ask for seconds gladly.
We don’t want to really deal with the elephant in the room – 70 million people picked Trump on purpose. Better to blame AOC for being too liberal and scaring them away. Better to blame moderates for not getting onboard with BLM or pronouns ruining the world. Better to see fault in ourselves because we can fix ourselves, try to be more appealing. Get our message out. We can still save them, bring them to the Light Side. They’re not bad, they just…. made a bad choice for “reasons”. Cue the circular firing squad instead of talking about the truth: some people want the shit sandwich no matter what. Ham didn’t have a chance and that’s not necessarily ham’s fault. It could be the best ham sandwich in existence, hell the most perfect sandwich of any kind and you’ll still be second choice to a plane full of people who want TurdRolls.
@wr: I’ve been on the receiving end of calls from candidates who have either lost or have come close to losing. Blowing off steam is to be expected, and there probably should have been a release valve that happened prior to a public call.
What I’m most concerned about is that the results of this election are going to translate into a Democratic Caucus that will be very tough to wrangle. Moderates are going to feel they’re on their own and we’ll miss out on some important policy votes because the numbers are so close.
Used to live in Omar’s district. She won in a landslide. Would’ve voted for her in a sec.
The Crew basically have little to no power now. Rs built them up more than they have themselves or have the right to be as of now because they represent a new way and it antagonizes their base hard.
@OzarkHillbilly: The right is completely OBSESSED with AOC. She’s as visible as Pelosi, and was on pieces of direct mail our household received from the NH Republican Party (talk about wasting money…). Why on earth was a freshman rep from NY on direct mail to a district in New Hampshire? Because, as I’ve noted above, it’s a very, very purple district that switches party almost every cycle. I’m pretty sure that this year was the first time in a while that a Democrat won back-to-back races in this district (Chris Pappas, who is a business owner and very moderate despite the attempts by Republicans to make him seem far-left.)
Whether she wants it or not, she’s now a predominant spokesperson for the Democratic Party, and that is going to prove to be a challenge in moderate districts. She’s very visible and very talented at getting her message out, but that message isn’t going to play in every district. That’s all I’m trying to get across.
Trump has installed a Nunes minion as chief lawyer at NSA. He’s decapitating DOD and put in loony toon loyalists. There is, inevitably, speculation Trump is setting up some sort of coup, although it’s a bit late for that. But the press are treating it mostly as a matter of personal revenge. Digby speculates that some of it is “burrowing”, the practice of an outgoing admin placing loyalists in protected Civil Service positions, perhaps as “landmines” for the incoming admin.
David Ignatius at WAPO thinks it’s about declassifying information Trump thinks shows the Russians didn’t want him to win in 2016. This supposedly involves sources and methods the Intel pros really, really don’t want compromised.
Ignatius doesn’t get into why Trump doesn’t himself order it declassified, as he apparently has the power to do. (Perhaps because it’s all rumor and he doesn’t really know what to release.) Nor does he address what Trump might do with this info if he got it released. Is he looking for redemption? Might he try to argue that it shows “Russia, Russia, Russia!” is a hoax and therefore he’s entitled to a mulligan on the election?
Your Reason(sic) link doesn’t mention any instance of a D actually saying “socialism”.
I took the comment to be more preventative than an admonishment for past behavior.* Basically–don’t go further left, there aren’t any votes to pick up there. And she’s right. AOC can go far left (note: She’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, so I’m guessing she’s used the word a time or two) because she’s in a solid blue district (over 70% going back as far as the mid 90s, and often in the mid 80%s.).
Those running in districts that are close need to stay more middle of the road. That’s just common sense. And a lot of that comes simply from how you word things. E.g., It’s not “socialized medicine” or “Medicare for all”, it’s “Affordable family healthcare”.
There was a strong anti-Trump component to this election. That won’t be around for the mid-terms. The Dems need to learn how to push a message that is more palatable to middle-of-the-road voters.
And while AOC has a point about shifting to digital advertising, she needs to remember that in a lot of rural districts, there’s not as much time spent online so it won’t have the penetration that TV, Radio, and billboards can get.
The US is not a single, monolithic market that can be approached in a single way.
* Why do I always want to write that word in British style??
Moderates are going to feel they’re on their own and we’ll miss out on some important policy votes because the numbers are so close.
To reinforce that, Joe Manchin announced today that he will not support SC expansion or doing away with the filibuster, which could have been on the table if the Dems swept the 2 GA senate races. You need numbers.
Console yourself in that Moscow Mitch will have the same problem with the R caucus.
@Jen: The right is completely OBSESSED with AOC.
…………………………….
Whether she wants it or not, she’s now a predominant spokesperson for the Democratic Party,
Yes they are, but no, no she is not, she is now a 2nd term representative for her district. That’s it. Our opponents do not get to pick our leaders or our spokespeople and I’ll be damned if I am going to let them. Remember when they were attacking Pelosi and a # of DEMs were saying we should pick somebody else for speaker? Yeah, they were attacking her because she scares the pants off them, and now they attack AOC because she has publicly pantsed them on numerous occasions.
The GOP has a new boogie(wo)man and they are beating the same old dead socialist horse. We don’t have to play the game according to their rules.
and that is going to prove to be a challenge in moderate districts.
She’s very visible and very talented at getting her message out, but that message isn’t going to play in every district.
And if the DEMs running in those moderate districts are getting papered over with things they never even said than they are pretty poor candidates who can’t even get their own message out. That’s not AOC’s fault.
Rule #1 of politics: Don’t let your opponent define you.
Until Carol Shea Porter unseated Jeb Bradley in 2007, NH’s first congressional district had been in R hands since 1985. Porter was reelected in 2008, but after that swapped the seat every 2 years w/Frank Guinta. Both Porter and Gunita were fringy candidates who benefited depending if was a presidential or off year election. Chris Pappas is the first Dem to be reelected since Porter in 08.
So yes, having a very liberal Dem from a safe district is a burden that Pappas carries.
And Hillbilly to your question of why Gohmert and not AOC. It’s not fair but crazy right wingers get a pass and lefties don’t. Likely because at the end of the day the US electorate is center -right.
but no, no she is not, she is now a 2nd term representative for her district.
She’s smart, she’s gorgeous, and she makes herself available to high-profile news outlets. She’s had covers on Vogue, TIME, and Vanity Fair. As a newly elected second-term member of Congress, she secured a nearly 2,000-word piece in the New York Times that is an interview of just her, and her views on what lies ahead.
Whether she’s been chosen by peers or the public or not, she is a defacto spokesperson for the party.
@Sleeping Dog: It’s not fair but crazy right wingers get a pass and lefties don’t.
OK, I hear that a lot and I am just going to say I think it’s a bullshit excuse. It sounds like an *”It’s all so unfair.” whine*. I know you don’t mean it that way, and there is a certain amount of truth to it, but it sure sounds like whining to me.
** I hear a lot of whining about the media too, which again there is a kernel of truth there, especially when it comes to the both sides BS, but if the GOP can play the media so can DEMs and they need to up their game.
As far as Pappas having to carry the “burden” of a “very liberal Dem from a safe district”, please, just stop it. I wonder how AOC did carrying the “burden” of all those moderate DEMs?
Likely because at the end of the day the US electorate is center -right.
There is a link above that suggests this isn’t the case. Economic conservatives represent a small portion of the electorate compared to Dems and a much smaller portion if we add in social conservatives who lean center-left/left on economic issues.
There is a reason for the GOP emphasis on guns, abortion, and law and order–if they ran exclusively on tax cuts, they would get trounced.
Check the model’s specs on a good audiophile website. I’ve noticed that a lot of lower to midrange headphones are a little rough on highs.
I recommend audio technica m50x–the bass is excellent and the highs are rounded. At least that’s my impression after spending a few months with them. They have a pretty easy impedance as well.
@OzarkHillbilly: I thought Rule #1 is to win. So while AOC gets to be a media star and preach to her own choir–not having to persuade anyone–she’s not being a team player of advancing the Party goal to turn purple districts blue and steal some margin out of red district.
Her message cannot accomplish this. What it can accomplish is to damage candidates that don’t have the media profile she does. She’s no different than Republican loons running in R+40 districts. The reason she is used by Republican attack machines is because she’s an unapologetic Democratic Socialist. Good for her–but that message only has Regional appeal. Bad for a National Party
The Democratic party has terrible messaging on economics–they are the party of programs. If you have ever relied on a government program for anything–its simply not a customer friendly experience. And if your black–you know the white people running the program are looking for any reason they can to screw you out of benefits.
The only person that kinda had a clue was Warren with her AntiTrust positions. The economy is too centralized. Capitalism is not supposed to be “efficient”–that’s what socialism was designed to do. There should be 4-6 hardware companies in a moderate-sized city instead of only 2 large ones in every town across America
There is a positive takeaway from Trump demagoguery–a LOT of people in the nation are tired of economic centralization with Wall Street sitting at the top of the pyramid and they want better resiliency. Its not a good strategy to be the party of safety nets in an era of this type of wealth disparity. There are too many people out here that KNOW they can and should be doing better if it were for a gatekeep and rent-seeker at every turn protecting the status quo for a hand-full of large national and multi-national corporations.
@Jen: Absolutely, and should be cognizant enough to balance her own priorities WITH that of the Party. I suspect, that, like a lot of Republican on the ideological fringe, she really doesn’t care about the Party. It was a convenient vehicle to get elected.
@Jen: she is a defacto spokesperson for the party.
Bullshit. Name me the leadership position she has been elected to. You are mistaking a high profile for party influence/power/whatever. As far as
she makes herself available to high-profile news outlets
So does every other congress critter in DC. She keeps getting picked by the media because she is smart, she has a real talent for inserting the shiv in committee, she’s well spoken, quotable, and yeah, good looking doesn’t hurt either. I can say the same for Ted Lieu. And a number of other congress critters. But unless they are elected to a party leadership position, none of them speak for the party, they speak for themselves and their districts.
@Jim Brown 32: If a dem candidate is so bad at getting out their message that their republican opponent can stuff other people’s words in their mouth than that DEM deserves to lose. I’m going to go do some work now.
@Sleeping Dog:
That strikes me a bit incautious.
I have not previously commented on matters Supreme Court; because I don’t have a good enough feel for American politics in relation to that, or how it might impact US legal/constitutional arrangements.
Same for details of tax policies, healthcare etc etc.
Not to mention American Football 🙂
But I think I do have a grasp of basic political tactics, and why on earth would Senator Manchin want to give up potential leverage on the Court?
Surely the best course would be to say privately to certain justices that he would be very reluctant, but that they need to exercise restraint in turn?
And in public that he disliked the idea, hoped the question would not arise, propriety, precedent yadda yadda.
But unless they are elected to a party leadership position, none of them speak for the party, they speak for themselves and their districts.
This is why I specifically used defacto spokesperson, not dejure.
My background is in PR and politics. If she’s getting the headlines, she’s visible, and her words and positions matter.
I understand what you are saying, that she’s not an official Party spokesperson, nor is she officially in leadership. But her very visibility and media savvy means that she is a prominent face of the party.
@de stijl:
@Kurtz:
I use Sennheiser HD650 when I’m in “avoid annoying neighbours” mode.
Highly recommend.
But I use them direct from a CD player or amp, so dunno how they’d fare with a less powerful source.
@Sleeping Dog: Probably more on the order of Ghana without cacao. I would have said North Korea without rice, but North Korea doesn’t have any rice either. 🙁
Now for something completely different: Open Architecture systems and our late/great edit function
People always say that there are two types of people and then give various examples: Beta vs. VHS. Compuserve vs. AOL. Compuserve/AOL vs straight ISP. PC vs. Mac. Flip Phone vs. Blackberry. But really, there is a universal difference. People who will settle for fewer features that will pretty much always work, vs. people who want to be able to try all the newest, most interesting features. Open Architecture systems, i.e. systems like WordPress that allow third party plug-ins to provide neat features, fall into this second category. And thus, the oft-missed edit feature and the sometimes missed quotes/links/I/b buttons.
I design software and hardware for a living and for most of my life when I come home and hang up my hat I want things that just work. The last open architecture system I used was Mozilla, and that turned into a giant stinkin’ pile of spitz when it started to upgrade every month and all my beloved plugins fell behind and dissolved into incompatibilities.
Been a fairly steady democracy since c.2000, rated among the least corrupt countries in Africa, economy in reasonable shape, and pretty sizable oil/gas fields too. Likely produces more now then Venezuela LOL.
@Mu Yixiao: I remember on one of my two trips to Nevada gambling listening to a program on the hotels “how to gamble” station. It was an interview with a man who claimed to be a professional gambler (I have no idea and don’t remember his name) who noted that something on the order 80 or so% of all players at casino games win money. Of that 80%, almost all (something like 95% IIRC) reinvest their winnings at the game they’re playing.
Luddite used to gamble. He tells me the secret is to have a budget and stick to it, not mixing profits with working capital. (From my own experience at “friendly” game with fellow faculty in Korea, I can say that it also helps if you play against people who are “plungers.” Watching World Poker Tour final tables, I would also note that most people go out having spectacularly over bet their hands. 😉 )
Manchin is a Dem senator from West Virginia, a state that Trump carried this year by nearly 69%. He manages to get reelected and is on the ballot in 2022, I believe. He is by far the most conservative Dem and likely to the right of 2 or 3 R senators.
Court expansion and getting rid of the filibuster are 2 issues the Rs are ginning up, he’s getting in front of that.
@Sleeping Dog:
That sort of makes sense; I’d be more sly myself and keep the powder dry for a year or so; but *shrugs* I suppose he knows his trade.
Looks like it might be off the table anyway.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
@JohnSF:
Actually just checked; Ghana still a long way behind Venezuela.
99,114 barrels per day as against 830,000 barrels per day.
And Mississippi actually scores c.41k bpd. Suprisingly
Someone else can figure out how that balances with it’s consumption 🙂
@MarkedMan: In grad school, I played with a group of fellow students. Strictly penny ante, but we used chips that one of our guys had bought from a company that made casino chips too. Buy in ran as high as $1.50, almost all of it in small change (we were grad students, most of whom didn’t have grants but did have student loans). Each new dealer called his own game, but we limited it to draw and stud–no high/low, no peekie, or anything like that. One night, I was the big winner at 3 or 4 bucks. Yeah, I miss it.
It was an interview with a man who claimed to be a professional gambler (I have no idea and don’t remember his name) who noted that something on the order 80 or so% of all players at casino games win money.
Doubtful, unless he means they win hands or plays, which really everyone does.
I can tell you two people he was not: Bob Dancer and Michael Shackleford*, whom I know and would never say something like that. Mike’s first commandment of gambling is: thou shalt expect to lose.
I bring along a certain amount of cash per trip, and that has to last me for the allotted time for all expenses: gambling, shopping, dining, shows, drinks, etc. The hotel and flight are prepaid online. I make exceptions rarely, and I never borrow money to gamble.
There are a few casinos in Mexico, and some even have craps. I’ve played here maybe six times all told, and three were research for an article on gaming in Mexico I wrote for a gambling website. it helps that they’re mostly slot parlors, and craps limits odds bets to 2X, which is chintzy.
All my four trips between 2012-2015 were timed to meet a group from an online gaming forum. Many are in town for several days, so I also meet a few of them several times. And some live there and we also meet when I’m there.
*Ok, Mike is not a pro gambler, but he does gaming math analysis. He claims to also be the guy who started the Social Security listing of how popular baby names are per year, when he worked as an actuary for the SSA decades ago.
“Almost 63 million people voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but in 1983, more than 106 million people watched the last episode of M*A*S*H. So, it seems that by this president’s standard, I’m a bigger deal than he is,” Alan Alda wrote in the Washington Post last month.
@Kurtz: I listened and thought the same thing. In my case, it’s a factor of using the built-ins on my computer, being deaf in one ear, and using a hearing aid that boosts treble a little for more accuracy in hearing tenor an higher speaking voices. So I almost never comment on sound issues. I simply assume I’m not hearing what was recorded.
@OzarkHillbilly: My experience is that mostly they don’t think. Actual conversation in the waiting room before PT a couple of months ago with a MAGA hat guy wearing an American flag and eagle tee shirt:
MHG: Wow! I can’t believe how much teachers make and they still say it’s not enough. $68K isn’t enough?
Me: Well that’s the median salary all right and it’s pretty good, but they have a saying it in Seattle. $68k is a little less than half a mortgage payment on a small house.
MHG: Yeah, houses are expensive in Seattle, but down here in Longview it’s different.
Me: Maybe not so much. Starting salary on the new contract is about $50 with extra duty on 190 days of the 180 that the school year is.
MHG: They work 190 days?
Me: No, they get paid for 190, I usually started preparing my classroom and such about 2 or 3 weeks before school started and worked shutting it down another 2 weeks after I posted the grades and taking calls from students and parents and such.
But back to my original point, if you took a job as a new teacher in Longview would you be able to buy the house you live in with a $50k salary at what you’d have to pay for it today?
MHG: Oh hell no.
Me: How about at $68,000?
MHG: Still probably not.
Me: Okay. How about a different house. Yours more valuable than most?
MHG: Not really.
Me: And under the current laws, if you’re a new teacher and don’t have a Master’s degree, you have to get it during the next 3 years or quit your job.
MHG: Well that’s just stupid.
Me: No argument on that.
MHG: You’re a real interesting guy for a socialist and make a lot of sense. I never looked at it from that view before.
That’s ridiculous. If you can make it through a Master’s program, why would you teach at the K-12 level when you could be teaching at the university level?
I taught (as a sub) in middle and high schools. There’s nothing there that needs a Master’s degree. Moderate amounts of Valium and at least a year competing in MMA, sure. But a Master’s? Nah.
In honor of Biden’s victory and the 110th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution (aka Big Civil War), I’m making meatballs in chipotle sauce with Mexican rice on the side.
Since I get Monday off, I may do a simple jello dessert. I’m thinking coconut atole with sugar-free vanilla flan (from a box; real flan is like a major PITA to make).
Unless I decide I have even more time than I think, in which case I’ve been mulling banana cheesecake, which I think it’s a terrible idea. I just can’t get it out of my head. Perhaps it would be better to make regular cheesecake and some kind of banana topping.
@JohnSF: I’ll second the Ghana comments. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in a tiny village there in 1988-1990, during the time when the military dictator had seen the writing on the wall with respect to their aid from the Soviet Bloc and had gone to the World Bank and basically said, “What do we need to do to be your poster child?”. A few years after I left he stood for election, won, served one term, then peacefully stepped down. When I was in Konkoma (if you just looked it up, it’s not that one) it had about 200-300 people, mostly women and children, no electricity, no running water, one passenger lorry that left at 5:00am and returned at 6:00pm or later, and the dirt road was so bad that lorry couldn’t reach us in the rainy season. The road effectively stopped at our village, which had once been a midpoint on a paved loop that ran through ten more villages. Most kids had kwashiorkor.
In 2015 I was returning for the first time with my family I warned my teenage children that they would see severe poverty. “Oh dad, we’ve been to remote rural villages in China on school trips. We know what poverty looks like.” No, I told them. It’s much worse. But I was wrong. 2-3% real growth above population per year for 25 years adds up. The village had electricity. Running water. Paved roads. A lot more people lived there year round. None of the kids I saw had kwashiorkor.
@JohnSF: I come by my prejudice-born-out-of-ignorance honestly though. An article in the Korea Herald while I was living there discussed the common thought among South Koreans that China is looking for an opportunity to snatch NK into it’s vision of “Greater China.” The article noted that engrossing NK into the country–essentially taking on fiscal responsibility for providing for the population–would be ill advised given that China already has massive economic imbalances. The author argued that (his words, approximately, not mine) taking on the arguably poorest nation in the history of civilization not named Ghana or Liberia would not resonate equally well among all of the current stakeholders in China as it is currently comprised.
I’ve simply taken the author at his word up to now. Thank you for the new vision.
PA’s Lt. Governor, John Fetterman, is cracking everyone up today. In response to TX Lt. Governor Patrick’s dopey offer of $1 million for “proof” of voter fraud, Fetterman tweeted the following:
Hey, Governor Patrick- it’s your counterpart in Pennsylvania.
I’d like to collect your handsome reward for reporting voter fraud.
I got a dude in Forty Fort, PA who tried to have his dead mom vote for Trump.
I’d like mine in Sheetz gift cards pls.
ps. The Cowboys blow.
(For those unfamiliar with Sheetz, it’s a mid-Atlantic chain of convenience stores and fuel stations, headquartered in Altoona, PA.)
I was briefly tasked with managing the push-out of new upgrades (or rarely of new software) to 39k desktops / laptops. Quite long ago-very early aughts.
We had a process, and testing, and due diligence checkpoints up and down the line, communications to users. Locked down and buttoned up.
Usually it wasn’t all, but a handfull, or a few hundred, or a few thousand machines hit depending on the software.
I knew Saturday was going to be a weird stint where I was likely there until 3 or 4. It sucked because I didn’t actually do anything but monitor and check in, my job was to make a roll-back call if necessary.
Everybody got fed like kings and queens and if a beer or two got sipped that was on my dime and no one else knew. It was midnight or after.
Monday morning was hardcore. Is everything working on desktops? How many laptops are done? How many outstanding? Please tell me we have not induced a process failure in some really important department.
The spookiest were for Excel and Access. Smart folks create stop gap measures that get pulled into core process.
Someone asked us to consider Open Source software. It took me a half second to respond with the usual blather, but my brain was saying “no, no, no! Are you a crazy person? I have 7 reasons why it wouldn’t work, and three why it would not be allowed. You are aware we employ risk management staff and lawyers?”
All the while my mouth was saying “We will absolutely look into that. I’ll need to get back to you so we can do an evaluation and establish a plan.”
Btw, I hate MS Project with every fiber of my being.
Nowadays it way more intense in that realm. Think of the platforms and what is local and what is served and how. Especially during pandemic.
Imagine managing software now! That’s a big-ass job! We were amateurs.
Extremely distributed and mobile workforce is the new norm. Just brushing the top of making that work hurts my head. I would enjoy that challenge.
MarkedMan says:
Wednesday, November 11, 2020 at 09:18
@Kathy: Kathy, I’m curious about something. I’ve never had any interest in gambling whatsoever, at least where the games are predominantly chance. And that lack of interest becomes absolute when a casino is involved, because they are definitely not going to run anything worth more than a nickel slot that favors the citizen. You know all this and from the comments above know that Lady Luck isn’t a thing, and that a good feeling won’t make the dice roll in your favor. So what’s the appeal?
I lived in Vegas on a job for 8 months. In that time, I learned alot about gaming. I learned that there are only two games in all of gambling where the player actually has a technical advantage over the house, assuming he/she plays perfectly and plays strictly on the odds: Craps and Blackjack. However, that comes with a caveat. The house knows that, so they lessen the odds even further by adding decks to blackjack and never going to the end of the deck. Nevertheless, you still have an infinitesimal advantage over the house, if you play the odds. Vegas doesn’t care enough about Craps to further disadvantage the player because they know, rightly, that for every one big winner, they’re going to have 50 big losers who think their hot streak from yesterday is going to carry over every time they play.
But Blackjack…. ah… Blackjack. The key to Blackjack is that you have to play alone, against the dealer with one deck. But even with multiple decks, you can still beat the house in Blackjack as long as you discard all emotion and strictly play the math ALWAYS. The problem with blackjack for the average Joe is that they’re too impatient. If you have a 52%-48% over the house that means if you play each hand correctly, over the course of 100 hands, you’ll end up 4% ahead. If you’re playing $5 per hand, you’ll play $500 worth of chips in those hands, and at the end you’ll have $520. Most people aren’t patient enough to win, and they play badly. I’ve seen randos split 10’s with dealing having a six showing. I’ve seen people hit on 16 with the dealer showing a six. I’ve seen people refuse to double down or split with the dealer showing a five.
Oh, and if any Blackjack table asks for an ante in addition to your bet, walk away. It takes away the players advantage.
I once sat at a $25 dollar table for 11 hours and turned $300 into $6800, little by little. End of the night, I cashed out, went to Chase and deposited the whole into into my account, except for $500, which I then lost over the next few days playing other games. Ahhh… good times.
@Mu Yixiao: It’s a brave new, and different, world in the PNW. A couple of years before I left for Korea in 2006, I was reading ads in the paper announcing that the University of Oregon, was looking to establish an adjunct faculty pool for virtually all departments, with the workload likely to be one or two sections per year starting out. They were looking for established PhD or equivalent degree holders with teaching experience of 3 or more years, but were willing to consider including MA/MS/MFA degree holders with 10 years of teaching experience.
Additionally, while I was at Clark College, a 2-year institution in Southwest Washington across the river from Portland where I taught until 2004 as an adjunct working half loads two quarters per year (so that I wouldn’t qualify for pension and medical, btw), the hiring preference for tenured faculty was possession of their terminal degree, and that faculty without terminal degrees would be required to complete graduate work leading to such degrees during the 3-year tenure process as one of the requirements for being granted tenure.
That’s ridiculous. If you can make it through a Master’s program, why would you teach at the K-12 level when you could be teaching at the university level?
While I will agree with the basic sentiments of your statement, my experience varies from your assumption. I will also note, that during the years in which I used to read the Chronicles of Higher Education in order to look for faculty posts, I never saw a single posting from a university for a tenure-track or instructional position where a Master’s degree met the educational requirements of the posting and almost no two-year institutions where a Master’s degree was adequate that were other than adjunct positions.
By the time I was leaving Korea in 2015, Ph.Ds were the preferred candidates most of the universities in the country for conversational language instructors of English, let alone higher level courses involving academic or technical writing or language. Still, I agree with your assessment of the utility of advanced degrees for K-12. The Washington State Legislature and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction don’t however. Guess who’s going to win that argument.
@Mu Yixiao: By the way, I taught K-12 for a time, also as a substitute teacher before going on to higher ed and then to Korea. I enjoyed it a lot and would have stayed in the field had my first full-time job not been so toxic (I was a bad match to the community vibe). I’ve never used Valium. Tried it once after a surgery, but it didn’t do anything for me. Training me to hit people would lead to an undesirable outcome for society, so I’ve also refrained from MMA. 😉
Ok, after a little tractor time I’m back, briefly.
AOC represents her district. Period. People who want her to speak for the entire DEM party? Sorry, you are fucked. Not her job no matter how much you want to make it hers. *And for the record,* yes, I am much more a political fit for her than Joe Manchin, because DUH!!!! global warming. Which, I’m sorry, fuck all the moderate DEMS, their grandchildren will not survive that apocalypse anymore than mine. I do however recognize that my preferred political policies are not feasible at this point in time and am more than willing to accept shorter measures. For the time being.
I do want to say this tho: There is no one size fits all policy straight jacket that guarantees electoral success across the country. If that is what you are looking for? Let me welcome you to minority status for the next 40 years.
AOC is a political force among the young, the voters who forever have been just beyond our reach. If the DEM party wants to be relevant in future years, they would do well to listen to her.
@OzarkHillbilly: I think you made the point–there is no one size fits all. So people like AOC (or a moderate) with a national profile need to understand their audience and communicate their message using the best words for the target audience.
Politicians (at least the best ones) can channel dual personas–they represent their district while also belonging to a Party where other representatives represent people from other districts. If they lose–SHE LOSES, WE LOSE.
Lets not kid ourselves, AOC is not dragged into the limelight kicking and screaming. She wants to be there–but allowing yourself to be used generate turnout against other Democrats who aren’t there to be media darlings but to actually do some work–aint playing to win. AOC scores 5 touchdowns but Team Donkey loses by a field goal.
I also disagree that she is the future–I happen to think she is a flash in the pan. She’s popular with the twitter mob and the NorthEast media–but where else does she really have any appeal? I can’t speak for out West or MidWest but she doesn’t have much buzz in the South–that includes young people. You’re only a force in my book when people that don’t pay much attention to politics know who you are. She’s not in that category–maybe one day but not today. I don’t think she has the style of message to broaden her appeal in other regions frankly.
I get the urgency Liberals have for Climate Change–but when are they going to acknowledge that US policy is only A factor in the equation–not THE ONLY factor? We have little influence over China and India the 2 largest factors of human activity contributing to Climate. Frankly, I believe Liberals make a category error in framing climate. Its not a policy problem–its a technology problem. There is some talk of it as a technology problem but its not the main gist of the messaging around how we deal with climate. This is a challenge that we can’t legislate our way out of–we’ll have to invent our way out of it.
I respect your comments and your take so time will tell which which view is correct. You could very well have it pegged dead centeer
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
As Cracker comments, I used to supplement my earnings at 7/11 with gambling (hey, even in ’75, $1.75/hr didn’t cover room/board/books/tuition when you had to supply your own pistol/ammo at work). Grandma ran card rooms for the Old Men (Chinese) in Seattle in the 40’s and 50’s. My early pre-school math lessons were odds on a card game. Grandma always said there was a name for plungers and people who bet their winnings. It began with “stupid” and, depending on what she was drinking, ended in “rubes” or “losers.” Her life lessons to me were (a) always know what you’re doing, (b) always play sober, and (c) leave when you’re ahead. All of these were preceded by “Of course the game is rigged. So?”
I will admit that, while I miss single deck blackjack and five-card draw, approximately 50 years of ethanol infusions and 4 years of chemotherapy have left Luddite without the stamina, mental acuity, or sheer cajones to play either game anymore. These days, even scrabble is hard.
It is very strange to me that many people here criticizing AOC don’t seem to be very aware of her actual positions. Some people have apparently internalized the GOP marketing that she’s a wildly out of touch left wing crazy commie who can’t possibly speak to voters outside her own hard left ecosystem. But much like R’s and Obamacare, when you actually break it down to individual elements, I suspect you’ll find you are suddenly liking a whole lot of what she says (not everything, but she isn’t really that radical as far as I can tell).
This isn’t to say I don’t disagree with her on many things. I don’t like her casting around for DINO’s and bringing primary purity politics into the D world like the Tea Party did to the R’s. I don’t like what I see as unnecessarily provocative messaging and slogans. But her policy positions and bills she has sponsored? Very few people here would have major problems with them. And she’s one of the sharpest actual questioners of witnesses in Congress.
In the end, the GOP attack machine LOVES to demonize women, full stop. Even their own if they take the tiniest step out of line (see Megyn Kelly). Clinton, Pelosi, AOC, “the squad”…the vitriol they get is even worse than the BS the Carlson’s of the world spew at D’s in general. Personally I think she should go on Fox News often. I’m confident she would not only shine on any news show they air, but would absolutely destroy their propagandists like Hannity, F&Friends, Carlson, Ingraham and the rest of them if they actually had the balls to put her on the air (they don’t). Make it obvious their caricature of her is ridiculous to their own viewers. Disappointing to see subscribers to the idea that her stances are utterly out of touch here.
Worked at 3 mental health emergency rooms part time to pay my way through undergrad and med school. Every other Friday for a few years a group of 5 of us got together to play poker. 2 Jewish psychiatrists, 2 Irish social workers and me (a mutt). The shrinks always brought the food. One oft Irish guys always brought a bottle of Jamesons. I brought beer. At the end of every night the shrinks usually had the chips, the empty beer bottles and booze glasses were surrounding me and the Irish guys. Nickel, dime quarter so you never lost more than $15. So besides confirming all kinds of stereotypes we had an awfully good time and no one took it too seriously. Would never play with people who actually takes it seriously.
@Kurtz:
Possibility of annoying them with loud(ish) music later at night.
My house is a late-50s former council house; and given UK’s abysmal building codes, that means it has party walls and all the sound insulating qualities of a cardboard box.
Sometime I do.
Headphones are great for detail and immersion; speakers for scale and, I dunno, the overall effect sorta thing?
Some albums just seem to work really well on ‘phones.
Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way for example.
Others, speakers seem more apt.
Plus, as I say, time of day. And mood. And whether I’m getting up and down a lot LOL.
Disappointing to see subscribers to the idea that her stances are utterly out of touch here.
I’m not communicating my feelings on this very clearly if I’m being lumped into this group.
I actually happen to agree with her on a number of issues, and have repeatedly stated that I think she’s smart and talented. She’s perfect for her district and most (but not all) of her political instincts are good. (Sidebar: I really do not like the notion of Democrats targeting Democratic incumbents deemed insufficiently Democratic, but that’s not just her, it’s a group of Members of Congress.)
This is a “does it play in Peoria?” issue, full stop. She’s cultivating a national platform for herself, and part of maturity and political leadership (whether that leadership is informal or formal) is understanding how your voice and platform resonates everywhere it’s being broadcast.
@Jen: “What I’m most concerned about is that the results of this election are going to translate into a Democratic Caucus that will be very tough to wrangle. ”
Well, I suspect that the programs Biden wants to see put forward are not going to be drawn from Mao’s Little Red Book and that they will be things that moderates and progressives both want. If moderates are so scared of their voters that they won’t back their party’s agenda for the nation as laid out by Biden in the election, then they shouldn’t be in office.
And fortunately, even if she’s part of JJ’s gerontocracy club, Nancy Pelosi is really good at wrangling…
@Jim Brown 32: “So people like AOC (or a moderate) with a national profile need to understand their audience and communicate their message using the best words for the target audience.”
Let’s say you ran for congress and won and found yourself desirable to the media. Would you think “Hey, people are listening to me now, so I’d better not say those things I’ve long believed that are contrary to conventional wisdom and toe the party line” or “Hey, people are listening to me now, finally there will be someone out there who can say out loud the things that so many people believe in their hearts and need to hear.”
Having read your passionate comments for years, I have a hard time believing you’d choose door number one. And if you did, you’d have turned yourself into just another political hack. Which is what you seem to believe AOC should do.
“but where else does she really have any appeal? I can’t speak for out West or MidWest but she doesn’t have much buzz in the South”
It seems odd to suggest that she has no appeal outside her district while handwaving away two of the country’s largest regions…
Hmm, you and JohnSF are better people than I. I read “annoying” as an adjective, not a verb… as in “which mode of avoiding annoying neighbors” as opposed to “which mode of attempting not to annoy neighbors.”
@wr: The beauty of the English language is that we have the ability to say the same thing different ways ,which as a professional writer, Im sure you understand this to a more advanced degree than I do.
Frankly, Im able to parse what AOC means from what she says–which most people that possess communication intelligence are also able to do. Unfortunately, communication intelligence is sparse amongst the population meaning leaders, need to be able to communicate their message in Northeast, Southern, Westcoast, and Midwest dialects.
There is nothing wrong with most of AOC means. But, because she doesn’t consider in cultural linguistics–she has a national profile and amplifies a factional message. I’ve made a living highlighting to organizational factions that they are in violent agreement–just using different language to describe their positions and remedies.
Politics is persuasion—and its wise to give yourself a boiler plate story narrative that gives you flexibility to tell stories that support your narrative to different audience.
You know how you market the Green New Deal to rural people?
You tell them America invented the Car, the Airplane, and the Tractor to make us the economic juggernaut we are today and NOW we are going to invent the next generation of things that powers them all and sell them to the World to make America the juggernaut of the 21st Century.
Now we avoid boring esoteric discussions about carbon credits & taxes and provocative arguments about banning activities people do to put food on their families tables. Im not saying this type of strategy would turn rural red areas blue. Im saying you reduce your margins in these areas from 40+R to to 30+R. You can maybe even start getting a few more Democrats elected to state legislature to blunt the Republican nuttiness going on. There are persuadable people still out there–if you engage them with the right language.
Got a little dusty in here: Wherefore art thou? Italian man serenades wife of 47 years at hospital window
Click on this link. No, really.
http://loser.com
@Kylopod: No thanx.
US postal worker recants voter-fraud claims after Republicans call for inquiry – reports
Given that it’s Veterans Day, will our soon-to-be-former Commander-in-Chief be emerging from his bunker to commemorate the occasion? Or will he be treating those losers and suckers who served and died with the contempt they deserve by ignoring it?
“What is the downside for humoring [Trump] for this little bit of time?” said one GOP official, unnamed, of course.
If you think about it for even a few seconds, this is one of the most contemptuous things anyone has ever said about Trump.
This is a very good synopsis of how absentee ballots are counted and matches very closely to what I remember from state politics (although unlike him, I never had to be the witness).
Telling excerpt:
@Jen:
What @JKB will take away from this:
“Totally true. We must get to the bottom of this!”
“Fake news, you librul media elite!”
I’m afraid this isn’t a discussion that can be won with facts.
@CSK: “What is the downside of walking into the WH and slapping the piss out of the spoiled rotten brat, making him sit in the 25th Amendment corner and do a 2 and half month time out?”
Did our resident Trumpers also get banned while I wasn’t paying attention?
@OzarkHillbilly:
He would have to be straitjacketed.
@MarkedMan:
They may have retired to lick their wounds.
I saw a Wu-Tang sign in an unexpected place yesterday.
Hanging off the richiest house on a richey-rich block.
Freaked me out in a good way. Wu-Tang Clan is for the children. Made my day.
I was walking to Mercy to get tested. Felt like shite for 5 days. Flu adjacent. Took a cab home. It was only 3 miles -I normally walk 4 miles or so most days- but I was spent. Went home. Crashed hard. Vivid dreams.
Will know diagnosis Friday.
@CSK: We’re getting an inch or two of rain in the DC area today, so he won’t be playing golf.
Also, Losers and Suckers Day is the end of May, today is He’s Smart, Why Did He Join the Military Day.
@CSK: I’d be down with that.
@CSK: Supposedly, he is going to Arlington cemetery.
Minor beef. You go to Arlington for Memorial Day. Veterans’s Day is for people who served in the Armed Forces. Memorial Day for those who died in service to country. Armed Forces Day is for those currently serving.
@Scott:
Oh, I know. But does Trump know?
@Mikey:
It always struck me as interesting that Trump, who is so infatuated with military display, should be so dismissive of actual fighting men and women.
@CSK:
He is incapable of understanding or comprehending anyone who serves a cause larger than themselves. In his mind, service before self is contemptible, an indicator of weakness. This is why he stood at the graves in Arlington and asked “what was in it for them?” He simply can’t grasp the concept.
But all the pageantry and spiffy uniforms and tanks and jets, those reflect glory on him. So all that, he loves. He just doesn’t hold any respect for the ” losers and suckers” who make it possible.
@de stijl:
@de stijl:
Gravatar is the path to an avatar. How good that avatar is, that’s up to you.
I first happened upon my chimp in one of the NBA 2K games. I and a buddy of mine had dynasty teams. I moved OKC to Baltimore and was looking through the various logos users uploaded. I saw him. I loved him.
Side note: I had no idea where it came from. I googled “chimp with a blunt” to no avail. I then tried “pimp chimp.” Nailed it! DeviantArt.
—
When I was in New Orleans a couple weeks ago, I saw a campaign-style yard sign that read:
Politicians come and go
Wu Tang is forever
@CSK: “It always struck me as interesting that Trump, who is so infatuated with military display, should be so dismissive of actual fighting men and women.”
Hollow false machismo. Trump is the guy who always kicks down.
Note that the heart of his ‘Sir, (tears)’ stories is brave strong men reduced to crying by Trump’s actions, sobbing their gratitude that Trump saved them. He knows that he’ll never get their honest respect, and resents it.
@de stijl:
There’s an “election sign” in a yard in my neighborhood:
“Politicians are temporary. Wu Tang is forever.”
I had to read it a couple times to make sure I was actually seeing it. 🙂
@Mu Yixiao:
Ha! Must have posted at the same time. I saw that one in New Orleans a few weeks ago.
https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1326321342933831680
Scroll down this thread for a lot of tweets with scary statistics.
@Mikey: @Barry:
Yup. You both called it exactly right.
On a slightly different topic, it occurred to me this morning that not only will Trump refuse to attend Biden’s inauguration, but he might well stage a competing rally. Would you put it past him? Then he’d try to brag that he got bigger numbers than Biden.
I said I’d talk about beginner’s luck if Biden won.
Beginner’s luck is very real, it just doesn’t happen to all beginners. But any person starting out in some kind of competitive endeavor, be it sports, gambling, or something else, has a chance of doing better than average on their first try, due to random factors.
A beginner who gets lucky at craps, say, may then think they’re particularly good at it and play lots more. but eventually the real odds of the game catch up and they lose money.
This actually happened to me. After my second trip to Vegas I still didn’t quite get how craps worked. So I downloaded a simulator at home and played. I have never again either in simulation or real life, had such a run of good luck.
I nearly signed up to an online casino, but I realized in time such luck wouldn’t necessarily hold out (besides all other issues with quasi-illegal online gambling). So I just played some more on the simulator over the next year (and lost more than I won, as expected; but now I knew how to play).
Trump met a series of contributing factors on his road to a surprise victory in 2016. Like the death of Beau Biden in 2015, which led to his father not running on that cycle. Comey’s letter late in the campaign, which we all know about. Having an opponent both known and strongly disliked who generated little enthusiasm in her own party*. And more that we know about, plus what we still haven’t figured out.
He seems to have fallen for the fallacy that his skill alone mattered.
And now he’s a one-term loser.
Oh…yes, please. I’d love to see how this pans out. I doubt it would…succeed.
Mississippi Republican calls for his state to ‘succeed from the union’ after Biden victory
@Kathy: Kathy, I’m curious about something. I’ve never had any interest in gambling whatsoever, at least where the games are predominantly chance. And that lack of interest becomes absolute when a casino is involved, because they are definitely not going to run anything worth more than a nickel slot that favors the citizen. You know all this and from the comments above know that Lady Luck isn’t a thing, and that a good feeling won’t make the dice roll in your favor. So what’s the appeal?
@Jen:
You’d think a Mississippian would know the proper spelling of “secede.”
@de stijl: Hang in there, bud, keep us updated as to how you’re feeling, please! You may have noticed we worry about people around here. 🙂
@Jen:
Hoping they succeed and don’t let the door hit you in @ss on the way out.
What would Mississippi be as an independent country? Venezuela without oil.
@Jen: I’d be happy to help them go. My only question is who do they think is going to pick up the slack?
https://www.msightly.com/covid-19/details.php
Map, Rt by state
@MarkedMan: So what’s the appeal?
The adrenalin rush that comes with a winning hand and a big pot. Of course that is soon followed by the sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach when you big time lose the next one.
@charon:
Tested the link, you need to click a choice at left sidebar to get to the Rt map
@MarkedMan: I would imagine the resident Trumpies are submersing in the swamp with their own kind for the time being. They all gotta get their talking points straight.
@MarkedMan:
Fun. Thrills. “Free” drinks.
What’s the appeal of playing Monopoly, say, or other board games? you won’t make money, right? Same with gambling.
Still, there are some advantage games here and there. there was a full pay Deuces Wild video poker machine at The D. It pays 100.6% with perfect strategy. The strategy is rather simple, and you can print it out and consult it any time. I was ahead about $600 on that machine by my last trip in 2015. Unfortunately ti was a nickel machine, so the payoffs were low (but so was the bankroll required to spend hours on it).
There are a few Not So Ugly Ducks at the Main Street Station and El Cortez. They pay 99.72%, again with perfect strategy. On average you’ll lose money, but can hit a four deuces jackpot or two with good variance (ie luck). Add perks form the players club, and it might be worth it.
@Kathy:
Beginner’s luck also has a huge dose of Achievements in Ignorance to help it along. It’s not unusual for a beginner to beat someone who’s been doing something for years simply because they’re so unpredictable and will take inadvisable actions. Anyone with some knowledge on a subject would be constrained by “don’t do that, it’s stupid and won’t work”. Newbie doesn’t know any better, tries it and finds it sometimes will work – it’s stupid to do because it *mostly* won’t work or be more harmful than helpful. They just beat the averages.
Beginner’s luck kinda requires that ignorance to work. You go in blind and let the numbers fall as they may. You get a higher percentage of people with great outcomes and so people assume it’s luckier. Nope, they’re more likely to take a dumb risk and reap the reward.
@Kurtz:
Screwed up my first attempt. Used an e-mail address that technically exists, but I have no way of accessing. I set that up in probably 1990.
God only knows what password I chose. Probably something related to The Pixies. Black_Francis or somesuch. Or Bl4ck_Fr4nc1s were I cunning.
Will try again. I want a cool pic. If I have to fork over my real e-mail address, so be it. Can always send there shit to junk if need be.
Wait for it. It is coming.
@de stijl:
You need to use the e-mail you use to post here.
mood music for your image hunt.
The other day AOC lashed out at Dem moderates about their criticism of Dem progressives and made some very accurate points about the failures of Dem mods. Unfortunately her points and defense of defund the police don’t counter mod criticisms of the left. This morning it is Tlaib who is lashing out.
James Clyburn, cut them both off at the knees, Clyburn: Things Like ‘Defund the Police’ Did NOT Help Dems During Election, I Believe It Hurt Jaime Harrison’s Senate Race
Much of the left, exists in a bubble that is as hermetically sealed as that of the right. This is particularly true of some younger congress critters and those more recently stepping forward into leadership positions. Alas, they are not learning from the former New Left, circa 1960’s who didn’t listen to the advice of the Old Left, circa 1930’s. So the wheel turns.
Is Gravatar intentionally designed to be really fucking annoying and frustrating?
If so, extremely well designed.
I’ve only gambled at a casino once (a one-week stretch). I was with some friends in the Dominican Republic and the resort had a casino. We went 5 times and all I did was play roulette.
I walked out with more than I came in with every night except one–where I walked out with the same amount.
I placed lots of safe bets–winning or losing a dollar or two each time–and then a dollar on each of 0 and 00. The key was that I started with $50. If I ever made it up to $75, the original $50 went into my pocket and never came out. If I made it over $75 a second time, I did the same thing. The problem people have with gambling is not knowing when to quit.
@Sleeping Dog:
Reason
@Kurtz:
I bought the OG Depeche Mode version on vinyl in fall of 1981.
That some old school mash-up shit, son
I like Smells Like Teen Booty
@Mu Yixiao:
Representative Spanberger speaks the truth.
AOC’s district is something like D+40. Spanberger’s was held by a Republican and is a R+6.
These two are talking past one another because their districts look NOTHING ALIKE. AOC shouldn’t be advising Spanberger on what she should or shouldn’t do.
Unifying Dem messages need to be so broad that they actually match what both district populations are thinking, so “yay, jobs” and “we need to have trusted leadership” is about it.
Fuck it! Too god damned annoying. I will proudly sport the plain G avatar with pride.
Life is too short to waste time on really poorly designed interfaces.
I am capital G avatar and screw Gravatar because you fucking suck. You stole 3 hours from me and for dick nothing.
@de stijl:
I’m surprised. I’ve used Gravitar quite a bit (I set up avatars for an entire department once). Unless something has changed, I was very easy to use. Add e-mail address, click the “upload” and select the image you want.
FWIW, my avatar just appeared there from the start when I put in my email address (it’s gmail). One time I used the work address by mistake, and the avatar didn’t show up.
@Jen: “These two are talking past one another because their districts look NOTHING ALIKE. AOC shouldn’t be advising Spanberger on what she should or shouldn’t do.”
Actually, if any of the reflexive left-bashers around here bothered to read what AOC said to Spanberger, it was that most of the Dems who were defeated put the vast majority of their resources into TV, almost entirely ignoring both online advertising and in-person contacts. She didn’t say that the Spanbergers of the world should run on her agenda — unlike the moderates who are offended by the fact they have to share a party with anyone who isn’t in lockstep agreement with them — but that they should try to run a 21st century campaign. She also said she offered help in this regard to all Dem incumbents, and the six or so who took her up on it won their districts.
Now, please, go back to telling us how childish the left is. For some reason, that seems to make you feel good.
@Jen: This just begs for a response of “AMF!”
@wr: You got to it before I did.
AOC also said that there should be more permanent infrastructure because what infrastructure the democratic party used to rely on has been incredibly weakened or no longer exists (specifically: unions).
This is something that’s been my pet peeve for some time. The DNC under Howard Dean was trying to build out state and local parties and was making some real headway, but then he was bounced from the DNC in 2008 and they reverted to an ineffective strategy.
I don’t know what Tom Perez has been doing, but from the looks of the results, I’d say that he wasn’t doing enough.
@Jen:
This is what Tlaib, AOC and others deny, that what they want doesn’t have universal appeal and why they’ll never get a sliver of what they want. I suspect that in about 30 years, these Dem leftists are going to look back like Ted Kennedy did after the Clinton universal healthcare plan died ignominiously and admit that he should have take Nixon up on Nixon’s plan for universal coverage.
@Mu Yixiao:
I tried thirteen separate images explicitly searched for under “free gravatar jpeg images” from five sites. Went to the native page for that image. Copied the address to my clipboard. I even hand copied one address and typed it in. Same error message.
Backtracked, made sure the basics were square. Deleted everything off my clipboard.
Every attempt gave the same error message. I did permutations on settings. Same message.
I got pissed off initially that I had to establish a WordPress account to access the service. Twice as it turned out.
Nope. Not worth it.
I could not accomplish the simplest task – select an image.
@CSK:
Scary Thought Of The Day:
He might well stage his own inauguration. There is no requirement the swearing-in of a POTUS has to be done by the Chief Justice, any judge can do it.
@de stijl:
I found an image I could legally use, copied it to my computer, and uploaded that .gif file when creating the avatar. No addresses involved.
@OzarkHillbilly: I think I’m lucky then. I get no adrenaline rush whatsoever. I consider the whole thing mind-numbingly boring. I find casinos to be loud obnoxious eyesores that have zero attraction, and I’m mad every time a trade show or conference that I have to attend picks Las Vegas as their site. The first few times I went I walked around the floor, learned the games, and watched the people. At this point I don’t really have any interest in watching the people any more.
I like a good private game of poker though, if the stakes are high enough to make people take it seriously but low enough they aren’t risking the mortgage payment. And if I have an excuse to leave before we get into the goofy games segment. I don’t even like playing with wild cards, much less sticking cards to your forehead.
@Mu Yixiao:
I have a lot of images saved as jpeg on my computer. I just browed my computer to select one.
Just looked at worldometer. Top Rona states per capita:
North Dakota
South Dakots
Iowa
Wisconsin
Nebraska
Mississippi
Utah
Tennessee
Idaho
Alabama
Republican science denial hurts.
@dazedandconfused:
I hadn’t thought of that, but the fact that it didn’t occur to me doesn’t mean it wouldn’t occur to Trump. He might have a problem getting even a pro-Trump judge to go along with it.
@de stijl:
Yeah, son.
Somehow Purple Pills works perfectly with the keyboard lick after a little technical wizardry to speed up the verses.
@wr:
If that’s typical of her abilities and resources she is on track for a leadership position.
@dazedandconfused:
Nope – money. Trump wouldn’t settle for a Bible in the lobby of a hotel – he’d want a scene. Even the dumber ones are going to figure out the federal spigot gets cut off in two months and Trump’s notorious for not paying bills even with the government’s dime. Anybody with the cash to pay for something like that won’t because of the legal ramifications (that’s actual sedition and treason right there) and because they know they won’t get the money back. Where’s the profit in declaring him POTUS-in-Exile when the lawyers are frantically waving you off? It’s *real* hard to argue in court that getting a judge (or even a “judge” from the internet) to administer the Oath of Office to the loser of an election in a big public to-do near the legal Inauguration timeframe is a “joke” or “satire” or “publicity stunt”; any lawyer with a single brain cell will tell you that’s a BAD idea. What’s the money angle? Wingnut welfare exists to make cash and generate power but all that would do is feed the lawyers and bail bondsmen for a few more weeks.
@CSK: good point.
@charon:
I think it’s more a reflection of her age than her talent. It’s 2020 and media is where the GOP is strongest. TV, social media, memes, you name it – Dems suck at messaging and particularly suck at getting the message out to the right people. Preach all you want in NYC but it’s the guy in rural GA we need to get and keep. Social media can be both targeted and blanket in a way TV networks aren’t. She speaks Tweet like Trump does; she understands FB ads and posts get more attention than ads you can skip over on TV with tech now.
Her flavor of liberalism aside, it was foolish to ignore a younger, more tech-savvy pol’s advice on how to reach people. Help is help and the DNC needs to start getting with the times, ASAP.
How many days before Republicans start blaming Rona on Joe?
@Barry: the stories of Trump and John Kelly at military graveyards, and Trump saying, why did they die, what was in it for them? Buncha Losers.
I’d like to think I’d have had the balls/ovaries to try, if I were Kelly, to strangle him to death on the spot. I wonder if the Secret Service would have reacted urgently.
Test
@Teve:
One-term loser Trump already tried that, in a way, by blaming the Obama administration for not leaving a full supply of PPE stockpiled for his use, among other things which also failed to resonate even with his supporters.
@MarkedMan:
Our regular homegame has migrated online. Let me know if you’re interested in joining, depending on your stakes preferences. Even at the relatively small stakes we play, everyone takes it pretty seriously. Some of us are willing to go higher as well.
@Kurtz: hopefully Hold Em? Or is it Omaha?
Trump was late to Arlington and missed the important part of the ceremony. He only stayed for 6 freaking minutes. He made servicemen and women, vets and the elderly wait for his ass in the rain, couldn’t be bothered to show up for the meaningful part and left before the driver could find a parking spot.
But hey red America, this is who you wanted for another 4 years! Support the troops…. for a few seconds. Yay!
@KM: I’m not sure there isn’t talent there. Maybe talent honed by virtue of her younger age and experience being online, but she does seem pretty quick witted online and IRL. And she does seem to understand that the same message that sells in her district doesn’t necessarily sell in other districts.
@DrDaveT:
Um. You copied the jpeg or img address and then pasted it into the upload element.
An address was definitely involved. It is required. http://www.here.com/picture.jpg
Protocol, host name, file name
Hey, remember when folks kept trying to tell us that the Proud Boys *wasn’t* a white nationalism org? Sure seems like a lot of high ranking members seem to drift in that direction:
https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-based-stickman-enrique-tarrio-goys-1546597
@Kurtz: Thanks for the offer, and I may take you up on it in the future. Right now, though, I’m so swamped with work and keeping up with personal life that I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to even keep a date.
By the way, how does an on-line computer game even work? I assume there’s a web app somewhere that deals the cards?
@KM:
In the imagined scenario of John Roberts swearing in Biden on one side of the field while Judge Judy (or whatever, he can certainly find one crazy judge somewhere) swears in Trump on the other side, Trump would be asserting that the Supreme Court (John Roberts) has no authority to decide the issue and the issue is to be decided by the Pentagon. This would explain the frantic placing of toadies within the DOD right now.
@CSK:
@KM:
If he tries to stage his faux inaugural, it will be in DC as his hotel there is sold out and he won’t want to give up that revenue. Considering no one looking to attend Joe’s inaugural will stay there.
Of course, DC won’t give him a permit.
@MarkedMan:
If you’re going to be trapped in Vegas again, let me know. there are other things to do besides gambling (and shows). Like the conservatory at the Bellagio (and the fountains out front), a bird exhibit at the Flamingo, a small zoo and dolphin pool at the Mirage, Rides atop the Stratosphere tower, the mini replica of the Eiffel tower at Paris, and lots and lots of shopping.
Off the Strip you may want to visit the Atomic Testing Museum, and the Mob Museum.
@de stijl:
@DrDaveT:
Super sorry!
In what described it isn’t. Apologies – I read too fast.
I’ll try. If @Mister Bluster can do it with his passive-aggressive “Test” comment.
Article from Vanity Fair:
“How Many State Secrets Is Trump Going to Sell to Pay off His Debts?”
A lot, I fear. He’s over 400 million in the hole. And of course he has to get revenge for being rejected. What better way than to totally undermine national security?
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/donald-trump-debt-national-security/
@Kathy:
Hoover Dam, though it’s a bit of a drive.
@Jen:
Seems like the situation calls for economic populism minus social justice messaging.
I referenced this scatter plot the other day. I saw it in the 538 chat. Here is the whole study.
In my view, capturing some of the populist vote via targeted economic messaging specifically to rural white dude is the path to take.
If the message seems like economic policy to address social justice, then that demographic ignores the policies that benefit them. But if the messaging is centered on economic struggles they can relate to, different ball game.
@CSK:
Oh, yeah, that’s amazing, too. If you have half a day free, it may be worth taking a tour.
BTW, Ivanka is celebrating on Twitter Trump’s win in Alaska. That’s like celebrating a field goal when you’re seventeen points behind with one second left on the clock.
@KM:
Be reasonable. The rain would have spoiled his hairdo and made his facial bronzer run.
@MarkedMan:
Anytime. There is a game most evenings/nights. We use a webapp that deals. Exchange money via app. We keep the same table open and transfer ownership if need be. The nice thing about that is that the cash in/out and hand histories are available to anyone at the table, even if you weren’t at the table for a session.
Whoever is the owner for the night takes the money (venmo/cashapp) before folks are allowed to sit. Payout when you leave the table. It works pretty well.
It’s worth revisiting an article I’ve discussed here before, a mid-2019 Washington Monthly piece titled “How Trump Could Lose the Election and Remain President.” The hypothetical scenario it lays out looks incredibly prescient now, especially considering it was written before the pandemic, before the ramping up of VBM, before it was even known who the Dem nominee would be:
Of course, Trump’s legal challenges in the real world appear to be completely fizzling. In fairness, the article suggests that the scenario it outlines is unlikely to succeed. One obvious difference with the current situation is that Biden didn’t just rebuild the blue wall, he also expanded the map with his (still not official but probable) wins in GA and AZ. That’s made Trump’s attempts to overturn the results seem even more quixotic.
Still, the article’s description of how Trump would react to losing and how much the rest of the GOP would play along (such as McConnell, Graham, and Romney) is dead-on.
@Kurtz:
Apologize for the “son”. I blame reflex, but it is on me. No intent.
@de stijl:
De stijl
Here’s a bit of Pop Will Eat Itself to ease your woes.
(Hope you’re feeling well again soon)
@wr:
I genuinely have no idea where this came from. I’ve never said the left is childish, and didn’t even come close to implying that. I read AOC’s statement, and her main gripe appeared to be that Dems didn’t sink more money into digital…but again, that’s going to vary depending on the makeup of the district.
I really, really despise it when the circular firing squads come out. But, it happens every time. Right wingers complain that Republican moderates are losing because they aren’t adhering to conservative lines. Progressives complain that Democratic moderates are losing because they aren’t exciting the base enough. This simply isn’t true. It’s just harder to win moderate districts because they can and do flip back and forth. I live in NH-1, which is *notorious* for switching party almost every cycle.
@Mike in Arlington: “You got to it before I did.”
Now we know who is better at avoiding work!
@CSK:
Given that Biden will observe COVID protocols, if Trump does hold a rally he’s almost guaranteed a large in-person crowd.
@Jen: Didn’t mean you specifically, sorry. Yours was just the one in the string of messages I responded to. There is definitely a set of lefty-bashers around here, and I was reacting to them…
@Jen: ” Progressives complain that Democratic moderates are losing because they aren’t exciting the base enough”
Sure, but this particular circular firing squad started when one moderate started shouting in a conference call about how all the terrible leftists said these terribly left things and that undermined all the moderates. In this case it was a moderate demanding that anyone to her left not run to and for their own base in case it annoys hers.
@de stijl:
Sure, son! No need for apologies. You and I are on several identical wavelengths, one of them being slang like that. You need not worry much about offending me–there are a few things I let bother me if I’m already in a bad mood. Otherwise, it’s pretty tough to offend me.
@Kurtz:
Might’ve taken a trip down mushroom alley a coupla times in my life. Perhaps more.
Pills are nonsense. Lab-made is a crapshoot where no roll is good.
Oregon decriminalized it last week. It is the Maker’s work. Grows free and proud naturally.
Have not listened to Depeche Mode in years.
Nice journey back into deep time. But, lord, it’s so pingy on the keyboards. Great concept, executed well, poor tools.
@Mu Yixiao: Your Reason(sic) link doesn’t mention any instance of a D actually saying “socialism”. The squad may have at some point, but it doesn’t matter. Republicans have been calling Dems “socialists” since forever, back to the 30s at least. Rs are going to lie about Ds being socialists, and commies, no matter what Ds actually do or say.
Democrats generally, and Biden specifically, haven’t said the truth. That this country needs a good dose of democratic socialism.
The number of actual, for real, socialists in this country could probably hold a convention in a decent size Starbucks, if they were open. No one who matters is advocating for government ownership of the means of production, although GOPs would have us believe all Ds do. Hence my use of “democratic socialism” above.
@de stijl:
How are you listening? Headphones, old school hifi?
As best I can tell, the only thing AOC advised Spanberger to do is to not blame her for Spanberger’s campaign’s short comings. Which I have to say I pretty much agree with.
Really, I see a whole lot of people (both professional and wkend warrior politicians) trying to blame a first term congress critter from a +40 D NYC district for the losses of a few DEM candidates running in +R districts in podunk Ohio or weebok IL, and it’s horseshit. You lost your race? Look in the mirror and you’ll see the #1 reason why. Learn from that and do better next time. Don’t blame AOC or Tlaib or Omar.
I mean, I haven’t heard any Republicans blame Louie Gohmert or Steve King for Martha McSally’s 2 in a row losses in AZ, and they all thought she was the perfect senatorial candidate for AZ.
@gVOR08:
Oh, of course. That’s why I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he already has plans for an Inauguration Day rally in the works.
He really can’t hold a counter-inaugural, much as he’d probably like to do so. But yes, I can see him holding a rally. Maybe he can get Newsmax and OANN to televise it, because even Fox will be at the Biden ceremony.
@Mu Yixiao: I found it horrible too, but I am not “intuitive” at all. There are just some computer things that I just can’t see. My wife comes in and beep boop beep bop and it’s all done. I pull out my framing hammer and…
@MarkedMan: I’m with you. Many years ago I found myself in a few high stakes games and I didn’t like it. The thing was, none of them started out high stakes, they just went that way without my realizing it until… Not fun. I’ve never been inside a casino either, and never will be.
@JohnSF:
Never seen that before. That was intensely 1996. I want McDonalds now and I can’t get it.
I think this bleeds well into the aughts but I love The Ting Tings That’s Not My Name.
I actually wrote an essay on bands who perform a song in a white, empty space.
@Kurtz:
Headphones
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think a lot of Dems can’t really deal with the fact that so Americans willingly chose a con artist and terrible human being. They did it, on purpose. It’s so hard to see people intentionally make horrible choices that it’s easier to rationalize something must be wrong with you instead. I mean, they chose the shit sandwich so the ham must look rotten or something, right? Mold on the bread, a funny smell, green and oozy? There *has* to be something wrong with the alternative because otherwise it means people willingly eat shit and ask for seconds gladly.
We don’t want to really deal with the elephant in the room – 70 million people picked Trump on purpose. Better to blame AOC for being too liberal and scaring them away. Better to blame moderates for not getting onboard with BLM or pronouns ruining the world. Better to see fault in ourselves because we can fix ourselves, try to be more appealing. Get our message out. We can still save them, bring them to the Light Side. They’re not bad, they just…. made a bad choice for “reasons”. Cue the circular firing squad instead of talking about the truth: some people want the shit sandwich no matter what. Ham didn’t have a chance and that’s not necessarily ham’s fault. It could be the best ham sandwich in existence, hell the most perfect sandwich of any kind and you’ll still be second choice to a plane full of people who want TurdRolls.
@de stijl:
96? 89 IIRC
I’ve been revisiting a lot of end-80’s/early-90’s stuff lately so it popped into my head.
Though their last album was from 96 I think.
title Dos Dedos Mis Amigos
And I see the edit function has buggered off again.
@wr: I’ve been on the receiving end of calls from candidates who have either lost or have come close to losing. Blowing off steam is to be expected, and there probably should have been a release valve that happened prior to a public call.
What I’m most concerned about is that the results of this election are going to translate into a Democratic Caucus that will be very tough to wrangle. Moderates are going to feel they’re on their own and we’ll miss out on some important policy votes because the numbers are so close.
@gVOR08:
Used to live in Omar’s district. She won in a landslide. Would’ve voted for her in a sec.
The Crew basically have little to no power now. Rs built them up more than they have themselves or have the right to be as of now because they represent a new way and it antagonizes their base hard.
It’s quite amusing.
@JohnSF:
For reals? I would not have thought.
Men before their time. They had the strut.
@OzarkHillbilly: The right is completely OBSESSED with AOC. She’s as visible as Pelosi, and was on pieces of direct mail our household received from the NH Republican Party (talk about wasting money…). Why on earth was a freshman rep from NY on direct mail to a district in New Hampshire? Because, as I’ve noted above, it’s a very, very purple district that switches party almost every cycle. I’m pretty sure that this year was the first time in a while that a Democrat won back-to-back races in this district (Chris Pappas, who is a business owner and very moderate despite the attempts by Republicans to make him seem far-left.)
Whether she wants it or not, she’s now a predominant spokesperson for the Democratic Party, and that is going to prove to be a challenge in moderate districts. She’s very visible and very talented at getting her message out, but that message isn’t going to play in every district. That’s all I’m trying to get across.
I know I’m having a hard time reconciling it and I live among them. At this point I can only say I have no idea how they think.
Trump has installed a Nunes minion as chief lawyer at NSA. He’s decapitating DOD and put in loony toon loyalists. There is, inevitably, speculation Trump is setting up some sort of coup, although it’s a bit late for that. But the press are treating it mostly as a matter of personal revenge. Digby speculates that some of it is “burrowing”, the practice of an outgoing admin placing loyalists in protected Civil Service positions, perhaps as “landmines” for the incoming admin.
David Ignatius at WAPO thinks it’s about declassifying information Trump thinks shows the Russians didn’t want him to win in 2016. This supposedly involves sources and methods the Intel pros really, really don’t want compromised.
Ignatius doesn’t get into why Trump doesn’t himself order it declassified, as he apparently has the power to do. (Perhaps because it’s all rumor and he doesn’t really know what to release.) Nor does he address what Trump might do with this info if he got it released. Is he looking for redemption? Might he try to argue that it shows “Russia, Russia, Russia!” is a hoax and therefore he’s entitled to a mulligan on the election?
@gVOR08:
I took the comment to be more preventative than an admonishment for past behavior.* Basically–don’t go further left, there aren’t any votes to pick up there. And she’s right. AOC can go far left (note: She’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, so I’m guessing she’s used the word a time or two) because she’s in a solid blue district (over 70% going back as far as the mid 90s, and often in the mid 80%s.).
Those running in districts that are close need to stay more middle of the road. That’s just common sense. And a lot of that comes simply from how you word things. E.g., It’s not “socialized medicine” or “Medicare for all”, it’s “Affordable family healthcare”.
There was a strong anti-Trump component to this election. That won’t be around for the mid-terms. The Dems need to learn how to push a message that is more palatable to middle-of-the-road voters.
And while AOC has a point about shifting to digital advertising, she needs to remember that in a lot of rural districts, there’s not as much time spent online so it won’t have the penetration that TV, Radio, and billboards can get.
The US is not a single, monolithic market that can be approached in a single way.
* Why do I always want to write that word in British style??
@Jen:
Every local race RNC and super – PAC ad placed AOC front and center. Pelosi level.
Rs are really into bashing D female pols unrelated to the local race. Not a bug, a feature.
@Jen:
To reinforce that, Joe Manchin announced today that he will not support SC expansion or doing away with the filibuster, which could have been on the table if the Dems swept the 2 GA senate races. You need numbers.
Console yourself in that Moscow Mitch will have the same problem with the R caucus.
Yes they are, but no, no she is not, she is now a 2nd term representative for her district. That’s it. Our opponents do not get to pick our leaders or our spokespeople and I’ll be damned if I am going to let them. Remember when they were attacking Pelosi and a # of DEMs were saying we should pick somebody else for speaker? Yeah, they were attacking her because she scares the pants off them, and now they attack AOC because she has publicly pantsed them on numerous occasions.
The GOP has a new boogie(wo)man and they are beating the same old dead socialist horse. We don’t have to play the game according to their rules.
And if the DEMs running in those moderate districts are getting papered over with things they never even said than they are pretty poor candidates who can’t even get their own message out. That’s not AOC’s fault.
Rule #1 of politics: Don’t let your opponent define you.
@de stijl:
What kind of headphones?
@Jen:
Until Carol Shea Porter unseated Jeb Bradley in 2007, NH’s first congressional district had been in R hands since 1985. Porter was reelected in 2008, but after that swapped the seat every 2 years w/Frank Guinta. Both Porter and Gunita were fringy candidates who benefited depending if was a presidential or off year election. Chris Pappas is the first Dem to be reelected since Porter in 08.
So yes, having a very liberal Dem from a safe district is a burden that Pappas carries.
And Hillbilly to your question of why Gohmert and not AOC. It’s not fair but crazy right wingers get a pass and lefties don’t. Likely because at the end of the day the US electorate is center -right.
@Kurtz:
Fairly cheap. Half way between crap and mid-range.
@OzarkHillbilly:
She’s smart, she’s gorgeous, and she makes herself available to high-profile news outlets. She’s had covers on Vogue, TIME, and Vanity Fair. As a newly elected second-term member of Congress, she secured a nearly 2,000-word piece in the New York Times that is an interview of just her, and her views on what lies ahead.
Whether she’s been chosen by peers or the public or not, she is a defacto spokesperson for the party.
OK, I hear that a lot and I am just going to say I think it’s a bullshit excuse. It sounds like an *”It’s all so unfair.” whine*. I know you don’t mean it that way, and there is a certain amount of truth to it, but it sure sounds like whining to me.
** I hear a lot of whining about the media too, which again there is a kernel of truth there, especially when it comes to the both sides BS, but if the GOP can play the media so can DEMs and they need to up their game.
As far as Pappas having to carry the “burden” of a “very liberal Dem from a safe district”, please, just stop it. I wonder how AOC did carrying the “burden” of all those moderate DEMs?
@Sleeping Dog:
There is a link above that suggests this isn’t the case. Economic conservatives represent a small portion of the electorate compared to Dems and a much smaller portion if we add in social conservatives who lean center-left/left on economic issues.
There is a reason for the GOP emphasis on guns, abortion, and law and order–if they ran exclusively on tax cuts, they would get trounced.
@de stijl:
Check the model’s specs on a good audiophile website. I’ve noticed that a lot of lower to midrange headphones are a little rough on highs.
I recommend audio technica m50x–the bass is excellent and the highs are rounded. At least that’s my impression after spending a few months with them. They have a pretty easy impedance as well.
@OzarkHillbilly: I thought Rule #1 is to win. So while AOC gets to be a media star and preach to her own choir–not having to persuade anyone–she’s not being a team player of advancing the Party goal to turn purple districts blue and steal some margin out of red district.
Her message cannot accomplish this. What it can accomplish is to damage candidates that don’t have the media profile she does. She’s no different than Republican loons running in R+40 districts. The reason she is used by Republican attack machines is because she’s an unapologetic Democratic Socialist. Good for her–but that message only has Regional appeal. Bad for a National Party
The Democratic party has terrible messaging on economics–they are the party of programs. If you have ever relied on a government program for anything–its simply not a customer friendly experience. And if your black–you know the white people running the program are looking for any reason they can to screw you out of benefits.
The only person that kinda had a clue was Warren with her AntiTrust positions. The economy is too centralized. Capitalism is not supposed to be “efficient”–that’s what socialism was designed to do. There should be 4-6 hardware companies in a moderate-sized city instead of only 2 large ones in every town across America
There is a positive takeaway from Trump demagoguery–a LOT of people in the nation are tired of economic centralization with Wall Street sitting at the top of the pyramid and they want better resiliency. Its not a good strategy to be the party of safety nets in an era of this type of wealth disparity. There are too many people out here that KNOW they can and should be doing better if it were for a gatekeep and rent-seeker at every turn protecting the status quo for a hand-full of large national and multi-national corporations.
@Jen: Absolutely, and should be cognizant enough to balance her own priorities WITH that of the Party. I suspect, that, like a lot of Republican on the ideological fringe, she really doesn’t care about the Party. It was a convenient vehicle to get elected.
Bullshit. Name me the leadership position she has been elected to. You are mistaking a high profile for party influence/power/whatever. As far as
So does every other congress critter in DC. She keeps getting picked by the media because she is smart, she has a real talent for inserting the shiv in committee, she’s well spoken, quotable, and yeah, good looking doesn’t hurt either. I can say the same for Ted Lieu. And a number of other congress critters. But unless they are elected to a party leadership position, none of them speak for the party, they speak for themselves and their districts.
@Jim Brown 32: If a dem candidate is so bad at getting out their message that their republican opponent can stuff other people’s words in their mouth than that DEM deserves to lose. I’m going to go do some work now.
@Sleeping Dog:
That strikes me a bit incautious.
I have not previously commented on matters Supreme Court; because I don’t have a good enough feel for American politics in relation to that, or how it might impact US legal/constitutional arrangements.
Same for details of tax policies, healthcare etc etc.
Not to mention American Football 🙂
But I think I do have a grasp of basic political tactics, and why on earth would Senator Manchin want to give up potential leverage on the Court?
Surely the best course would be to say privately to certain justices that he would be very reluctant, but that they need to exercise restraint in turn?
And in public that he disliked the idea, hoped the question would not arise, propriety, precedent yadda yadda.
@OzarkHillbilly:
This is why I specifically used defacto spokesperson, not dejure.
My background is in PR and politics. If she’s getting the headlines, she’s visible, and her words and positions matter.
I understand what you are saying, that she’s not an official Party spokesperson, nor is she officially in leadership. But her very visibility and media savvy means that she is a prominent face of the party.
@CSK: Speak for yourself. I wouldn’t expect that.
@de stijl:
@Kurtz:
I use Sennheiser HD650 when I’m in “avoid annoying neighbours” mode.
Highly recommend.
But I use them direct from a CD player or amp, so dunno how they’d fare with a less powerful source.
@Sleeping Dog: Probably more on the order of Ghana without cacao. I would have said North Korea without rice, but North Korea doesn’t have any rice either. 🙁
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
If at first you don’t secede, try, try again.
Now for something completely different: Open Architecture systems and our late/great edit function
People always say that there are two types of people and then give various examples: Beta vs. VHS. Compuserve vs. AOL. Compuserve/AOL vs straight ISP. PC vs. Mac. Flip Phone vs. Blackberry. But really, there is a universal difference. People who will settle for fewer features that will pretty much always work, vs. people who want to be able to try all the newest, most interesting features. Open Architecture systems, i.e. systems like WordPress that allow third party plug-ins to provide neat features, fall into this second category. And thus, the oft-missed edit feature and the sometimes missed quotes/links/I/b buttons.
I design software and hardware for a living and for most of my life when I come home and hang up my hat I want things that just work. The last open architecture system I used was Mozilla, and that turned into a giant stinkin’ pile of spitz when it started to upgrade every month and all my beloved plugins fell behind and dissolved into incompatibilities.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Bit harsh on Ghana, that.
Been a fairly steady democracy since c.2000, rated among the least corrupt countries in Africa, economy in reasonable shape, and pretty sizable oil/gas fields too. Likely produces more now then Venezuela LOL.
@Mu Yixiao: I remember on one of my two trips to Nevada gambling listening to a program on the hotels “how to gamble” station. It was an interview with a man who claimed to be a professional gambler (I have no idea and don’t remember his name) who noted that something on the order 80 or so% of all players at casino games win money. Of that 80%, almost all (something like 95% IIRC) reinvest their winnings at the game they’re playing.
Luddite used to gamble. He tells me the secret is to have a budget and stick to it, not mixing profits with working capital. (From my own experience at “friendly” game with fellow faculty in Korea, I can say that it also helps if you play against people who are “plungers.” Watching World Poker Tour final tables, I would also note that most people go out having spectacularly over bet their hands. 😉 )
@JohnSF:
Manchin is a Dem senator from West Virginia, a state that Trump carried this year by nearly 69%. He manages to get reelected and is on the ballot in 2022, I believe. He is by far the most conservative Dem and likely to the right of 2 or 3 R senators.
Court expansion and getting rid of the filibuster are 2 issues the Rs are ginning up, he’s getting in front of that.
@Sleeping Dog:
That sort of makes sense; I’d be more sly myself and keep the powder dry for a year or so; but *shrugs* I suppose he knows his trade.
Looks like it might be off the table anyway.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
@JohnSF:
Actually just checked; Ghana still a long way behind Venezuela.
99,114 barrels per day as against 830,000 barrels per day.
And Mississippi actually scores c.41k bpd. Suprisingly
Someone else can figure out how that balances with it’s consumption 🙂
@MarkedMan: In grad school, I played with a group of fellow students. Strictly penny ante, but we used chips that one of our guys had bought from a company that made casino chips too. Buy in ran as high as $1.50, almost all of it in small change (we were grad students, most of whom didn’t have grants but did have student loans). Each new dealer called his own game, but we limited it to draw and stud–no high/low, no peekie, or anything like that. One night, I was the big winner at 3 or 4 bucks. Yeah, I miss it.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Doubtful, unless he means they win hands or plays, which really everyone does.
I can tell you two people he was not: Bob Dancer and Michael Shackleford*, whom I know and would never say something like that. Mike’s first commandment of gambling is: thou shalt expect to lose.
I bring along a certain amount of cash per trip, and that has to last me for the allotted time for all expenses: gambling, shopping, dining, shows, drinks, etc. The hotel and flight are prepaid online. I make exceptions rarely, and I never borrow money to gamble.
There are a few casinos in Mexico, and some even have craps. I’ve played here maybe six times all told, and three were research for an article on gaming in Mexico I wrote for a gambling website. it helps that they’re mostly slot parlors, and craps limits odds bets to 2X, which is chintzy.
All my four trips between 2012-2015 were timed to meet a group from an online gaming forum. Many are in town for several days, so I also meet a few of them several times. And some live there and we also meet when I’m there.
*Ok, Mike is not a pro gambler, but he does gaming math analysis. He claims to also be the guy who started the Social Security listing of how popular baby names are per year, when he worked as an actuary for the SSA decades ago.
@Kurtz: I listened and thought the same thing. In my case, it’s a factor of using the built-ins on my computer, being deaf in one ear, and using a hearing aid that boosts treble a little for more accuracy in hearing tenor an higher speaking voices. So I almost never comment on sound issues. I simply assume I’m not hearing what was recorded.
@Jen:
In no way do I dismiss her. She will likely be a big deal.
But the way that Rs treat her as a proxy for the party is creepy and weird.
@OzarkHillbilly: My experience is that mostly they don’t think. Actual conversation in the waiting room before PT a couple of months ago with a MAGA hat guy wearing an American flag and eagle tee shirt:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
You need a Master’s to teach K-12?
That’s ridiculous. If you can make it through a Master’s program, why would you teach at the K-12 level when you could be teaching at the university level?
I taught (as a sub) in middle and high schools. There’s nothing there that needs a Master’s degree. Moderate amounts of Valium and at least a year competing in MMA, sure. But a Master’s? Nah.
In honor of Biden’s victory and the 110th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution (aka Big Civil War), I’m making meatballs in chipotle sauce with Mexican rice on the side.
Since I get Monday off, I may do a simple jello dessert. I’m thinking coconut atole with sugar-free vanilla flan (from a box; real flan is like a major PITA to make).
Unless I decide I have even more time than I think, in which case I’ve been mulling banana cheesecake, which I think it’s a terrible idea. I just can’t get it out of my head. Perhaps it would be better to make regular cheesecake and some kind of banana topping.
@JohnSF: I’ll second the Ghana comments. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in a tiny village there in 1988-1990, during the time when the military dictator had seen the writing on the wall with respect to their aid from the Soviet Bloc and had gone to the World Bank and basically said, “What do we need to do to be your poster child?”. A few years after I left he stood for election, won, served one term, then peacefully stepped down. When I was in Konkoma (if you just looked it up, it’s not that one) it had about 200-300 people, mostly women and children, no electricity, no running water, one passenger lorry that left at 5:00am and returned at 6:00pm or later, and the dirt road was so bad that lorry couldn’t reach us in the rainy season. The road effectively stopped at our village, which had once been a midpoint on a paved loop that ran through ten more villages. Most kids had kwashiorkor.
In 2015 I was returning for the first time with my family I warned my teenage children that they would see severe poverty. “Oh dad, we’ve been to remote rural villages in China on school trips. We know what poverty looks like.” No, I told them. It’s much worse. But I was wrong. 2-3% real growth above population per year for 25 years adds up. The village had electricity. Running water. Paved roads. A lot more people lived there year round. None of the kids I saw had kwashiorkor.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Yeah, that sounds like my speed.
@CSK: Lol!! 😀 😀 😀
@JohnSF: I come by my prejudice-born-out-of-ignorance honestly though. An article in the Korea Herald while I was living there discussed the common thought among South Koreans that China is looking for an opportunity to snatch NK into it’s vision of “Greater China.” The article noted that engrossing NK into the country–essentially taking on fiscal responsibility for providing for the population–would be ill advised given that China already has massive economic imbalances. The author argued that (his words, approximately, not mine) taking on the arguably poorest nation in the history of civilization not named Ghana or Liberia would not resonate equally well among all of the current stakeholders in China as it is currently comprised.
I’ve simply taken the author at his word up to now. Thank you for the new vision.
PA’s Lt. Governor, John Fetterman, is cracking everyone up today. In response to TX Lt. Governor Patrick’s dopey offer of $1 million for “proof” of voter fraud, Fetterman tweeted the following:
(For those unfamiliar with Sheetz, it’s a mid-Atlantic chain of convenience stores and fuel stations, headquartered in Altoona, PA.)
@MarkedMan:
I was briefly tasked with managing the push-out of new upgrades (or rarely of new software) to 39k desktops / laptops. Quite long ago-very early aughts.
We had a process, and testing, and due diligence checkpoints up and down the line, communications to users. Locked down and buttoned up.
Usually it wasn’t all, but a handfull, or a few hundred, or a few thousand machines hit depending on the software.
I knew Saturday was going to be a weird stint where I was likely there until 3 or 4. It sucked because I didn’t actually do anything but monitor and check in, my job was to make a roll-back call if necessary.
Everybody got fed like kings and queens and if a beer or two got sipped that was on my dime and no one else knew. It was midnight or after.
Monday morning was hardcore. Is everything working on desktops? How many laptops are done? How many outstanding? Please tell me we have not induced a process failure in some really important department.
The spookiest were for Excel and Access. Smart folks create stop gap measures that get pulled into core process.
Someone asked us to consider Open Source software. It took me a half second to respond with the usual blather, but my brain was saying “no, no, no! Are you a crazy person? I have 7 reasons why it wouldn’t work, and three why it would not be allowed. You are aware we employ risk management staff and lawyers?”
All the while my mouth was saying “We will absolutely look into that. I’ll need to get back to you so we can do an evaluation and establish a plan.”
Btw, I hate MS Project with every fiber of my being.
Nowadays it way more intense in that realm. Think of the platforms and what is local and what is served and how. Especially during pandemic.
Imagine managing software now! That’s a big-ass job! We were amateurs.
Extremely distributed and mobile workforce is the new norm. Just brushing the top of making that work hurts my head. I would enjoy that challenge.
@MarkedMan:
I lived in Vegas on a job for 8 months. In that time, I learned alot about gaming. I learned that there are only two games in all of gambling where the player actually has a technical advantage over the house, assuming he/she plays perfectly and plays strictly on the odds: Craps and Blackjack. However, that comes with a caveat. The house knows that, so they lessen the odds even further by adding decks to blackjack and never going to the end of the deck. Nevertheless, you still have an infinitesimal advantage over the house, if you play the odds. Vegas doesn’t care enough about Craps to further disadvantage the player because they know, rightly, that for every one big winner, they’re going to have 50 big losers who think their hot streak from yesterday is going to carry over every time they play.
But Blackjack…. ah… Blackjack. The key to Blackjack is that you have to play alone, against the dealer with one deck. But even with multiple decks, you can still beat the house in Blackjack as long as you discard all emotion and strictly play the math ALWAYS. The problem with blackjack for the average Joe is that they’re too impatient. If you have a 52%-48% over the house that means if you play each hand correctly, over the course of 100 hands, you’ll end up 4% ahead. If you’re playing $5 per hand, you’ll play $500 worth of chips in those hands, and at the end you’ll have $520. Most people aren’t patient enough to win, and they play badly. I’ve seen randos split 10’s with dealing having a six showing. I’ve seen people hit on 16 with the dealer showing a six. I’ve seen people refuse to double down or split with the dealer showing a five.
Oh, and if any Blackjack table asks for an ante in addition to your bet, walk away. It takes away the players advantage.
I once sat at a $25 dollar table for 11 hours and turned $300 into $6800, little by little. End of the night, I cashed out, went to Chase and deposited the whole into into my account, except for $500, which I then lost over the next few days playing other games. Ahhh… good times.
@Mu Yixiao: It’s a brave new, and different, world in the PNW. A couple of years before I left for Korea in 2006, I was reading ads in the paper announcing that the University of Oregon, was looking to establish an adjunct faculty pool for virtually all departments, with the workload likely to be one or two sections per year starting out. They were looking for established PhD or equivalent degree holders with teaching experience of 3 or more years, but were willing to consider including MA/MS/MFA degree holders with 10 years of teaching experience.
Additionally, while I was at Clark College, a 2-year institution in Southwest Washington across the river from Portland where I taught until 2004 as an adjunct working half loads two quarters per year (so that I wouldn’t qualify for pension and medical, btw), the hiring preference for tenured faculty was possession of their terminal degree, and that faculty without terminal degrees would be required to complete graduate work leading to such degrees during the 3-year tenure process as one of the requirements for being granted tenure.
While I will agree with the basic sentiments of your statement, my experience varies from your assumption. I will also note, that during the years in which I used to read the Chronicles of Higher Education in order to look for faculty posts, I never saw a single posting from a university for a tenure-track or instructional position where a Master’s degree met the educational requirements of the posting and almost no two-year institutions where a Master’s degree was adequate that were other than adjunct positions.
By the time I was leaving Korea in 2015, Ph.Ds were the preferred candidates most of the universities in the country for conversational language instructors of English, let alone higher level courses involving academic or technical writing or language. Still, I agree with your assessment of the utility of advanced degrees for K-12. The Washington State Legislature and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction don’t however. Guess who’s going to win that argument.
@Mu Yixiao: By the way, I taught K-12 for a time, also as a substitute teacher before going on to higher ed and then to Korea. I enjoyed it a lot and would have stayed in the field had my first full-time job not been so toxic (I was a bad match to the community vibe). I’ve never used Valium. Tried it once after a surgery, but it didn’t do anything for me. Training me to hit people would lead to an undesirable outcome for society, so I’ve also refrained from MMA. 😉
@MarkedMan: Saw your comment later, too. Thanks for the information and comparison.
Ok, after a little tractor time I’m back, briefly.
AOC represents her district. Period. People who want her to speak for the entire DEM party? Sorry, you are fucked. Not her job no matter how much you want to make it hers. *And for the record,* yes, I am much more a political fit for her than Joe Manchin, because DUH!!!! global warming. Which, I’m sorry, fuck all the moderate DEMS, their grandchildren will not survive that apocalypse anymore than mine. I do however recognize that my preferred political policies are not feasible at this point in time and am more than willing to accept shorter measures. For the time being.
I do want to say this tho: There is no one size fits all policy straight jacket that guarantees electoral success across the country. If that is what you are looking for? Let me welcome you to minority status for the next 40 years.
AOC is a political force among the young, the voters who forever have been just beyond our reach. If the DEM party wants to be relevant in future years, they would do well to listen to her.
@EddieInCA:
Oh does that take me back, Eddie. By any chance did I run into you in Vegas in 74-75?
@EddieInCA:
I lost 60 bucks in Fargo in three minutes on blackjack. I was 20. $60 was big money to me.
Have not gambled since.
Worse outcome, I might have won.
@OzarkHillbilly: I think you made the point–there is no one size fits all. So people like AOC (or a moderate) with a national profile need to understand their audience and communicate their message using the best words for the target audience.
Politicians (at least the best ones) can channel dual personas–they represent their district while also belonging to a Party where other representatives represent people from other districts. If they lose–SHE LOSES, WE LOSE.
Lets not kid ourselves, AOC is not dragged into the limelight kicking and screaming. She wants to be there–but allowing yourself to be used generate turnout against other Democrats who aren’t there to be media darlings but to actually do some work–aint playing to win. AOC scores 5 touchdowns but Team Donkey loses by a field goal.
I also disagree that she is the future–I happen to think she is a flash in the pan. She’s popular with the twitter mob and the NorthEast media–but where else does she really have any appeal? I can’t speak for out West or MidWest but she doesn’t have much buzz in the South–that includes young people. You’re only a force in my book when people that don’t pay much attention to politics know who you are. She’s not in that category–maybe one day but not today. I don’t think she has the style of message to broaden her appeal in other regions frankly.
I get the urgency Liberals have for Climate Change–but when are they going to acknowledge that US policy is only A factor in the equation–not THE ONLY factor? We have little influence over China and India the 2 largest factors of human activity contributing to Climate. Frankly, I believe Liberals make a category error in framing climate. Its not a policy problem–its a technology problem. There is some talk of it as a technology problem but its not the main gist of the messaging around how we deal with climate. This is a challenge that we can’t legislate our way out of–we’ll have to invent our way out of it.
I respect your comments and your take so time will tell which which view is correct. You could very well have it pegged dead centeer
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
As Cracker comments, I used to supplement my earnings at 7/11 with gambling (hey, even in ’75, $1.75/hr didn’t cover room/board/books/tuition when you had to supply your own pistol/ammo at work). Grandma ran card rooms for the Old Men (Chinese) in Seattle in the 40’s and 50’s. My early pre-school math lessons were odds on a card game. Grandma always said there was a name for plungers and people who bet their winnings. It began with “stupid” and, depending on what she was drinking, ended in “rubes” or “losers.” Her life lessons to me were (a) always know what you’re doing, (b) always play sober, and (c) leave when you’re ahead. All of these were preceded by “Of course the game is rigged. So?”
I will admit that, while I miss single deck blackjack and five-card draw, approximately 50 years of ethanol infusions and 4 years of chemotherapy have left Luddite without the stamina, mental acuity, or sheer cajones to play either game anymore. These days, even scrabble is hard.
It is very strange to me that many people here criticizing AOC don’t seem to be very aware of her actual positions. Some people have apparently internalized the GOP marketing that she’s a wildly out of touch left wing crazy commie who can’t possibly speak to voters outside her own hard left ecosystem. But much like R’s and Obamacare, when you actually break it down to individual elements, I suspect you’ll find you are suddenly liking a whole lot of what she says (not everything, but she isn’t really that radical as far as I can tell).
This isn’t to say I don’t disagree with her on many things. I don’t like her casting around for DINO’s and bringing primary purity politics into the D world like the Tea Party did to the R’s. I don’t like what I see as unnecessarily provocative messaging and slogans. But her policy positions and bills she has sponsored? Very few people here would have major problems with them. And she’s one of the sharpest actual questioners of witnesses in Congress.
In the end, the GOP attack machine LOVES to demonize women, full stop. Even their own if they take the tiniest step out of line (see Megyn Kelly). Clinton, Pelosi, AOC, “the squad”…the vitriol they get is even worse than the BS the Carlson’s of the world spew at D’s in general. Personally I think she should go on Fox News often. I’m confident she would not only shine on any news show they air, but would absolutely destroy their propagandists like Hannity, F&Friends, Carlson, Ingraham and the rest of them if they actually had the balls to put her on the air (they don’t). Make it obvious their caricature of her is ridiculous to their own viewers. Disappointing to see subscribers to the idea that her stances are utterly out of touch here.
Worked at 3 mental health emergency rooms part time to pay my way through undergrad and med school. Every other Friday for a few years a group of 5 of us got together to play poker. 2 Jewish psychiatrists, 2 Irish social workers and me (a mutt). The shrinks always brought the food. One oft Irish guys always brought a bottle of Jamesons. I brought beer. At the end of every night the shrinks usually had the chips, the empty beer bottles and booze glasses were surrounding me and the Irish guys. Nickel, dime quarter so you never lost more than $15. So besides confirming all kinds of stereotypes we had an awfully good time and no one took it too seriously. Would never play with people who actually takes it seriously.
Steve
@JohnSF:
My experience with Sennheiser, even their entry level monitors has been positive.
Question:
Which avoiding annoying neighbors mode? Are you avoiding annoying them with loud music or are you using serious headphones avoid their annoying asses?
@Kurtz:
Possibility of annoying them with loud(ish) music later at night.
My house is a late-50s former council house; and given UK’s abysmal building codes, that means it has party walls and all the sound insulating qualities of a cardboard box.
@JohnSF:
I just prefer headphones.
Sometime I do.
Headphones are great for detail and immersion; speakers for scale and, I dunno, the overall effect sorta thing?
Some albums just seem to work really well on ‘phones.
Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way for example.
Others, speakers seem more apt.
Plus, as I say, time of day. And mood. And whether I’m getting up and down a lot LOL.
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
I’m not communicating my feelings on this very clearly if I’m being lumped into this group.
I actually happen to agree with her on a number of issues, and have repeatedly stated that I think she’s smart and talented. She’s perfect for her district and most (but not all) of her political instincts are good. (Sidebar: I really do not like the notion of Democrats targeting Democratic incumbents deemed insufficiently Democratic, but that’s not just her, it’s a group of Members of Congress.)
This is a “does it play in Peoria?” issue, full stop. She’s cultivating a national platform for herself, and part of maturity and political leadership (whether that leadership is informal or formal) is understanding how your voice and platform resonates everywhere it’s being broadcast.
@Jen: “What I’m most concerned about is that the results of this election are going to translate into a Democratic Caucus that will be very tough to wrangle. ”
Well, I suspect that the programs Biden wants to see put forward are not going to be drawn from Mao’s Little Red Book and that they will be things that moderates and progressives both want. If moderates are so scared of their voters that they won’t back their party’s agenda for the nation as laid out by Biden in the election, then they shouldn’t be in office.
And fortunately, even if she’s part of JJ’s gerontocracy club, Nancy Pelosi is really good at wrangling…
@Jim Brown 32: “So people like AOC (or a moderate) with a national profile need to understand their audience and communicate their message using the best words for the target audience.”
Let’s say you ran for congress and won and found yourself desirable to the media. Would you think “Hey, people are listening to me now, so I’d better not say those things I’ve long believed that are contrary to conventional wisdom and toe the party line” or “Hey, people are listening to me now, finally there will be someone out there who can say out loud the things that so many people believe in their hearts and need to hear.”
Having read your passionate comments for years, I have a hard time believing you’d choose door number one. And if you did, you’d have turned yourself into just another political hack. Which is what you seem to believe AOC should do.
“but where else does she really have any appeal? I can’t speak for out West or MidWest but she doesn’t have much buzz in the South”
It seems odd to suggest that she has no appeal outside her district while handwaving away two of the country’s largest regions…
@Kurtz: “Which avoiding annoying neighbors mode?”
Hmm, you and JohnSF are better people than I. I read “annoying” as an adjective, not a verb… as in “which mode of avoiding annoying neighbors” as opposed to “which mode of attempting not to annoy neighbors.”
@wr: The beauty of the English language is that we have the ability to say the same thing different ways ,which as a professional writer, Im sure you understand this to a more advanced degree than I do.
Frankly, Im able to parse what AOC means from what she says–which most people that possess communication intelligence are also able to do. Unfortunately, communication intelligence is sparse amongst the population meaning leaders, need to be able to communicate their message in Northeast, Southern, Westcoast, and Midwest dialects.
There is nothing wrong with most of AOC means. But, because she doesn’t consider in cultural linguistics–she has a national profile and amplifies a factional message. I’ve made a living highlighting to organizational factions that they are in violent agreement–just using different language to describe their positions and remedies.
Politics is persuasion—and its wise to give yourself a boiler plate story narrative that gives you flexibility to tell stories that support your narrative to different audience.
You know how you market the Green New Deal to rural people?
You tell them America invented the Car, the Airplane, and the Tractor to make us the economic juggernaut we are today and NOW we are going to invent the next generation of things that powers them all and sell them to the World to make America the juggernaut of the 21st Century.
Now we avoid boring esoteric discussions about carbon credits & taxes and provocative arguments about banning activities people do to put food on their families tables. Im not saying this type of strategy would turn rural red areas blue. Im saying you reduce your margins in these areas from 40+R to to 30+R. You can maybe even start getting a few more Democrats elected to state legislature to blunt the Republican nuttiness going on. There are persuadable people still out there–if you engage them with the right language.