This is the “unknown peak” of COVID-19: not the cities on the coast but the in lands. Half of all casualties are in elder packahouses. Now, it is the small ones out of the way.
“Selective Arithmetic to Hide the F-35’s True Costs”
I’ve been a fan of Sanders for a long time. Not because he was especially wonderful, but on account of him not being nearly as bad as the others. His unwavering support of the F-35 program was one of his many serious weak points. Already the armed forces are looking to get away from this turkey – the Air Force is talking about a 6th generation fighter and the navy is also ducking and weaving.
Ever since I learned North Korea was “specializing” in small yields with its nuclear program, I’ve suspected they were concentrating on an EMP weapon. Having a few of these would allow them to economize – only a few nukes would be needed and quite small rockets could carry them.
Is the information at the link any good? If the instructions are closely followed, I suspect the protection schemes would work. Still, I think I’d put a carefully sealed radio (or whatever) inside a large cookie tin in an attempt at added protection. In any case, have plenty of extra batteries, and do NOT put them inside the device being shielded. Leaking batteries was always a problem, but the Chinese have taken this issue to a brand new level. In my experience, Drug Store batteries need the closest supervision.
Something this excerpt from very well written story [below double lines] is remiss in pointing out, Sanders is the ONLY candidate that had a hand in rewriting the primary rules, both Jeff Weaver an Nina Turner were on the committee as was long time supporter Larry Cohen.
======================================
“It all began with the constantly changing and inscrutable criteria the DNC set for eligibility for the Democratic Presidential debates — which are the exclusive province of the Democratic Party, a private corporation. For the initial two debates in June and July, candidates had to either poll at least 1% in three approved national or early primary state polls or collect donations from at least 65,000 unique donors. However, although candidate Mike Gravel, a retired Senator who famously read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record during the Vietnam War and took a strongly progressive, anti-war stance, met the 65,000 donor qualification, he was nonetheless excluded from those debates by the DNC, with no explanation, resulting in him dropping out of the campaign after only three months in it. (Gravel’s campaign was intended as a vehicle to raise issues rather than a serious run for the Presidency, but that alone was evidently perceived as a threat by the DNC, given that Gravel’s platform was arguably the most radical of the Democratic candidates’.)
Requirements for candidates to qualify for subsequent debates were raised periodically — for instance, candidates needed to receive 130,000 unique donations AND at least 2% in four or more national or early state polls to qualify for the September and October debates. Though at least at first the requirements seemed reasonable, seemingly completely arbitrary decisions were made by the DNC about which polls to include as “qualifying” polls, as they would include one poll and exclude another poll from the same polling organization, or refuse to include polls sponsored by the highest-circulation newspapers in some of the early states. Gabbard seemed to suffer the worst from this arbitrariness, exceeding 2% in 26 polls prior to the September debate — but being excluded because only two of them were deemed “qualifying” polls.
Perhaps even more egregious was the decision to exclude her from the March 15 debate. Although the polling requirement of at least 10% in four “qualifying” polls was out of her reach, the DNC had also given candidates the opportunity to qualify by receiving at least one delegate in a primary, which Gabbard did by getting enough votes to win two delegates in American Samoa on March 3. Within days, the DNC changed the requirement under which she had qualified, requiring candidates to have received at least 20% of the delegates to qualify. As this would have disqualified all of the candidates besides Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden had they still been in the race, this change was clearly designed specifically to exclude Gabbard — the only remaining candidate besides Biden and Sanders by that time — from the debate, preventing her from having the opportunity to face only Sanders and Biden on what had previously been a very crowded debate stage (with there often having been 8–10 candidates onstage at once in previous debates).
In addition, as in 2016, the electoral process itself was heavily rigged to favor establishment candidates. Iowa, which had appeared to be destined to be an easy win for Sanders, was marred by a chaotic vote counting process in which an app that was supposed to total the votes mysteriously malfunctioned. Even the flagship of the Democratic establishment press, the New York Times, reported that the results were “riddled with inconsistencies and errors,” including mysterious “mistakes” in which votes cast for Bernie Sanders were (until caught by Sanders volunteers) given to candidates who barely even campaigned in Iowa. No results at all were reported on election night, and results trickled out gradually over the next week, with Pete Buttigieg mysteriously leading on “state delegate equivalents” even though Sanders was consistently ahead in the popular vote — though not by nearly as much as pre-primary polling had suggested. Buttigieg and the media declared Buttigieg the “winner” even though it is the popular vote that determines how many delegates are pledged to each candidate for the Democratic Convention. And in what was highly unlikely to be a coincidence, it turned out that the founder of the company that produced the malfunctioning app, Acronym, was married to a high-level official in Pete Buttigieg’s campaign. (In addition, several members of the team that designed the app also worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.) In several precincts where the popular vote was close between Sanders and Buttigieg (though in Sanders’ favor), delegates were awarded based on a coin flip, which in many cases appeared to have been rigged to favor Buttigieg. Comedian Jimmy Dore summed Iowa up well: “Apparently the Russians run the Iowa Democratic Party.”
In New Hampshire, the totals for precincts that used electronic voting machines (which are easily hackable) were widely discrepant from exit polling results, granting Pete Buttigieg 12% more votes than the exit polls suggested he had won, while tallies in precincts that used paper ballots matched the exit poll results closely. The final results for New Hampshire, like those for Iowa (which Bernie Sanders also won), were delayed by more than a week, robbing the Sanders campaign of momentum.
In Massachusetts, exit polls suggested that Sanders had won, but the vote totals (on electronic voting machines) gave the state to Biden. The discrepancy between the exit poll results and the voting results was 8.4%, more than double the poll’s margin of error. A large discrepancy also occurred in South Carolina, where Biden’s percentage of the vote was 8.3% higher than the percentage he received in the exit poll, a discrepancy likewise vastly in excess of the exit poll’s margin of error. The story was the same in Missouri, where not only did the discrepancy greatly exceed the exit poll’s margin of error, but for computerized vote totals, Sanders underperformed the exit poll by 11.4%, and Biden overperformed it by 9.3%.
The US Agency for International Development suggests that a discrepancy between exit polling results and voting results substantially in excess of the poll’s margin of error is grounds for suspicion of electoral fraud: “A discrepancy between the aggregated choices reported by voters [exit polls] and the official results may suggest, but not prove, that results have been tampered with.” The Organization of American States has sent election monitoring teams to countries with similarly poll-discrepant election results on hundreds of occasions. But no investigation of the US’s 2020 Democratic primaries is forthcoming, and little or no mention has been made of these irregularities in the corporate media — or, for that matter, by Bernie Sanders or his campaign staff. Instead, the media portrayed the sudden turnaround in Biden’s electoral fortunes as a rejection of Sanders’ policies — once again ignoring exit polling results, which showed strong support for Medicare For All and other reforms Sanders proposed, but questioning of his “electability,” likely because the media questioned his electability (and touted Biden’s).
Another form of electoral rigging in the 2020 primaries was attempts to suppress the vote in areas or among groups likely to be favorable to Bernie Sanders. According to the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), there was a “calculated effort to suppress the minority vote during [the March 3 primaries on] Super Tuesday” in 14 states. “Latinos have become the largest minority voting bloc in 2020, and our community is at the heart of the voting base in states like California and Texas. Yet, it is precisely in the largest minority communities around the country — specifically districts where the Latino vote makes the difference — that we are witnessing the biggest barriers for people to vote,” said Domingo Garcia, the organization’s president. Sanders led Biden by substantial margins among Latino voters in both Texas and California. But Latino voters encountered malfunctioning voting machines, closed or relocated polling places, and lines that were several hours long. Unable to stay away from jobs or other responsibilities for hours and hours, many voters left without being able to cast their votes. The same paucity of polling locations and hours-long lines occurred in many parts of the country for college students, who also heavily favored Bernie Sanders. Older voters are much more likely to vote early or by mail than younger voters, so any long delays on election day are likely to tilt election results toward candidates favored by older voters.
Another way that voting may have been rigged was that voter registrations were mysteriously switched to “no party preference” despite the voters having intended to register as Democrats so that they could vote in closed Democratic primaries. As of yet, it is not known for sure whether this was used as a means of discriminating against Sanders voters, but that was demonstrably the case in 2016.
Finally, combining sociopathic willingness to put voters’ lives at risks with the intention of suppressing election day in-person voting, several states (the most significant being Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin) insisted on holding their primaries as scheduled in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Not surprisingly, many voters facing the dilemma of risking their health versus foregoing exercising their voting rights chose the latter option, and in-person voter turnout was down considerably. Not surprisingly, a number of cases of coronavirus have been traced to being at polling places on election day. A poll worker in Illinois died from coronavirus.
In a nutshell, the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, like the 2016 primaries and many, many other US elections, were rigged from start to finish, likely costing Sanders and perhaps other candidates several percentage points in a number of states. The Democratic Party establishment pulled out all the stops”
“When Going Green Backfires: Eco-Friendly Car Wiring in Newer Cars Apparently Attracts Rats”
The headline is sort of misleading – I suspect the car’s designers simply made a bad choice. I’ve known for a fair while that rodents like certain types of plastic. Two 5-gallon containers of gasoline I had stored in an outbuilding had the small “air vent” caps completely chewed off while other gas can designs stored they were untouched.
Cars were mentioned on another thread last week, and since then I’ve seen some “stuff” which puts me off on new automobiles in yet another way. For quite a long time the glass used in our cars has been tempered safety glass, but there is a growing trend towards laminated glass. The new stuff is terrifically strong, so much so that it is impervious to the “hammer” style glass breakers people carry for emergencies. Youtube videos show big men with big hammers unable to get into a car. How in hell is somebody supposed to get out if trapped inside? In the unlikely event I purchase a new car or truck, this is a topic which will get some serious consideration – I’ll be looking for something with at least one breakable window.
Does anyone here know why, and when, Naked Capitalism stopped offering the option to enter a website connected to one’s user name when posting a comment (as Ian’s and many/most other Word Press site still do?). I recollect them offering that for quite a few years.
Was it an expense problem, given how large the site has become, or something else? It strikes me as being yet another factor in small blogs shutting down. Falling through the cracks myself now for years, along with millions of others in the US (particularly renters, who’ve always sickeningly been considered lower class and punished accordingly; unless they rent a penthouse), Naked Capitalism is becoming increasingly difficult to read without being horrified by some of the comments of those (doing far better than most!) who are clueless as to how their pontificating comments, presumptions and ‘humor, ‘hurt deeply. Additionally I seem to recollect not near so much Troll™ naming and other patronizing slurs, even when it’s clear there’s just a disagreement (or worse, when the victim was actually correct when the facts are uncovered), or someone sighed over having spent precious time on a post which goes unposted. Further, with all the horrid surveillance internet scraping the damage done with such Toll™ naming and other slurs can be real life if someone is using their real name, or is easily identified.
I really miss the smaller blogs (which have shut down or are empty of comments) I used to travel between instead of Naked Capitalism, where there was far, far less Meritocracy™ going on, smaller blogs which I’m sure many who comment (or used to comment) at Naked Capitalism maintain[ed].
Apologies for the link to the Warmongering Post, but my best alternative was a nasty click-bait site.
I’m a big fan of chocolate, and especially milk-based hot cocoa, but have few illusions about the quality of the product I’m consuming. Given how these youngsters are very nearly slave laborers, they have zero incentive to be concerned about the quality of the product they’re involved with. Chocolate powder can hide all sorts of “additions”, and I’m thinking specifically of good old dirt. Odd how none of the “consumer” sites ever run tests on this product. I know for a fact I once found a 2×2″ inch of heavy denim in a box of chocolate powder. Sabotage? Extremely low quality control? Your guess is as good as mine.
Re Sanders and the F-35, the Vermont Air National Guard has 20 stationed in South Burlington. Standard politics.
I always looked at the F-35 as the Space Shuttle of fighters. The Space Shuttle was built as a one vehicle does it all craft. It was overpriced and didn’t do any of its missions particularly well. In space, if you are moving cargo, you need heavy lift. You don’t need a crew. And if you are moving people, you don’t need heavy lift. It’s like building a Rolls-Royce and using it to deliver coal, or a tanker to carry people, but you want it to be able to do both. That’s the F-35. Everything for everyone. The one that got me was that this airplane that costs hundreds of millions of dollars was going to do close ground support where it could be taken out by a few shells from an AK-47. And of course, we have all the stories where the F-35 (it would be funny if it weren’t so expensive) can’t do even basic things, you know like shoot straight.
It makes me want to riff on Shakespeare: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the MBAs and contractors.”
Zachary Smith, what surprises me is that when you find something hinky in a can or package from a grocery chain and take it back to them, they never seem very surprised by it. It makes me think this happens more than we think.
Sanders appears far less the sheepdog to me, than he does they man who knows he can’t overcome the corporate-political complex as things are today, and has gone to the strategy of continuously reminding the hopeful Most Powerful Main In The World that America will continue to decline into kleptocracy under conservative policies.
So is it politically smarter to be an angry outspoken whistleblower martyr, than it is a the persistent but friendly advisor to power?
———–
“Ballot harvesting”
“Ballot harvesting” is a conservative smear for ballot collection and transport to the ballot box. It’s a system where a third party delivers ballots from voters too aged or infirmed to do it themselves. Conservatives believe that such a system could only ever be corrupted by the collectors/transporters who will somehow, magically be able to fake or dispose of ballots for each and every possible political view.
Tulsi Gabbard wants to eliminate that system, even though gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts are far more obvious and corrupt. There’s a mildly successful progressive youtuber who asked her to reconsider her stance, to become a bit more nuanced about it, and she refused to respond and twitter unfollowed him without explanation.
Sanders. As I read somewhere, the hard-line left wing and the hard-line right wing dislike Sanders for the same reason — he works as far to the left as is possible in today’s political situation. More refusal to accommodate, and he lacks all influence.
I would prefer a harder line from Sanders, but given that his participation virtually always results in improved laws, I do not attack his judgment. And by improved laws, I don’t mean the usual “lesser of two evils”, which means that the result is worse than we have now, but purportedly better than we’d have if we didn’t agree with real evil. I mean an improvement over what we have now.
I ask because I lived the martyr route, with disastrous consequences. It would’ve been smarter to publicly capitulate and operate more privately, and strategically. There seems to be a glitch in human nature (for enough individuals to be considered the majority if not a sizeable mob) that wants an obvious threat or enemy to fight, instead of something more covertly insidious. Maybe they’re wired more for joining forces to fight cave bears and less some new disease?
I just saw a Trump TV commercial where Biden quotes were so clearly taken out of context, that only an idiot would think otherwise. The quotes involved “raising taxes” and “shutting down the economy”, as if anybody would believe that a candidate thinks they’d be successful promising those things. Maybe apparently, there are many who simply would.
There is a lot of induced idiocy, carefully cultured and nurtured. And non-idiots can “go idiot” when placed in a powerful Idiocy Field. So a lot of hearers will take those quotes as given.
Then too, that ad may have a side-strategy of luring the Biden forces into wasting their time and energy answering and refuting them. You have to mention “a thing” in order to refute that ” a thing”. That way, the “a thing” gets broadcast twice. The second time at your target’s own expense. So I suspect the Bidenites will spend very little energy responding.
The Bidenites could do the same thing with Trump quotes out of context, if they wanted to.
Do they want to win badly enough to do that?
“When they go low, we go high” . . . . is a disgustingly smarmy motto for Beautiful Losers.
“When they go low, we go lower” . . . would be a more Winning attitude.
Imagine it . . .
When they go low, we go lower.
When they go lower, we go apeshit.
When they go apeshit, we go nuclear.
More than 50 million Americans have already voted, There aren’t a lot of undecided. Trump’s antics that worked in 2016 are a big fail this year due to covid and Trump fatigue. Trump is losing, and I think his loss will be big enough that our kangaroo Supreme Court won’t be able to pull it out for him.
Would now be a good time to link a REVEALING video from the ESTEEMED Dr. Steven Turley?
dc,
It all sounds good, except for that last line. It should read “When they go apeshit, we go nukular.” I know that partisans want to ignore the context, but I hope the undecided wouldn’t. I’d do a Biden commercial which plays the Trump snippet, then provides the entire quote right after. But then, I may nor may not be able to think like an undecided.
Thanks. That could well be an improvement. Now . . . do we spell that ‘nukular’ or ‘nucular’?
The hoity and the toity were/still are all raised to laugh when they hear the hoi and the polloi say it ‘nucular’. I know I was raised to laugh. But one fine day in the student co-ops at Big University, I met someone from Missouri. He said he was a graduate student in nukular engineering. I was about to correct his pronunciation for him, as per my training. But I luckily prevented myself in time and realized that he was the one who was smart enough to BE a nukular engineer. And since he was the one who was smart enough to BE one, he got to SAY it any way he LIKED.
Many years later I learned that ‘nukular’ versus ‘nookleeyur’ was as much a regional accent as a class marker.
George Shrubya Bush knew that very well when he affected to pronounce it ‘nukular’ When the hoity and the toity laughed at him, he knew his supporters would hear the hoity and the toity laughing at THEM.
BTW Murkowski is going to vote for SCOTUS nominee Barrett, showing once again that a principled Republican Senator is an oxymoron. We used to call this doing the media star turn. Some politician would make sounds like they stood for something. They would get media coverage, milk it, and then fade when they actually had to do something.
And what do people think of Barrett’s idpol anti-feminism? Put a skirt on a load of anti-woman BS and that makes it OK, or at least barely mentionable. And no one questioned her being a Circuit Court judge or on SCOTUS –and having seven children (8 to 19, and the youngest with Down’s). There are only 24 hours in a day and man or woman you can’t be a parent, especially an all fambly values one, to that many kids and fill a heavy duty senior position on the federal judiciary.
Lenny Bruce had a bit where Einstein would never had made it if he’d had a southern accent. “I wanna tell ya’ll bout nukular fishin.” Booo! Get off the stage…
I saw an article about an attractive black man who was a progressive, who was suddenly praised by some of his conservative coworkers for “coming around”. They showed him a facebook profile where somebody had stolen his facebook picture from his real account and pasted it onto a fake profile, of a fictional black man who came to realize all the flaws of the “marxist, racist, and atheist” democratic party and had turned conservative.
So he posted an angry message to that ‘person’ demanding they remove his picture. His comment had his real name and that very same picture, which should’ve been enough to persuade anybody viewing that site that it was a fake. Instead, he watched in horror as one guy called him a troll and the fake site with his stolen picture gained thousands of additional new followers with nobody questioning anything, before he finally complained to facebook management.
This is an example of how dishonest and desperate some of these conservative operatives are, and how stupid their followers can be. Probably old news, but I assume this is related to that scam:
The guy behind the scam, Charlie Kirk, had his mentor and funder die from coronavirus a few months ago, and was is still posting shit against mask wearing.
Very apt phrase! From the wiki – “The term may also apply to a court held by a legitimate judicial authority which intentionally disregards the court’s legal or ethical obligations.”
That’s our very own Rightwingnut Supreme Court all right. The bad part is that the Democrats are quite unlikely to do anything to correct the situation – even if this becomes possible.
Anon don’t know what you are looking for, it’s possible some reddit political subs might be (those related to Sanders/social democracy/democratic socialism/progressivism maybe?) Twitter can be amusing for a bit, but is really largely a waste of time and I suspect has many bots for some topics as well, so one wastes time getting angry at bots.
Re: :NooKleAr: vs. :NooQueueLer: We know some folks retired from the Labs at Los Alamos. And yeah, they use both, depending on where they’re from. If they’re from the Midwest or South, it’s the former. If they’re from the Coasts, it’s the latter. And there can be some gentle ribbing about it. How the locals pronounce it is largely a matter of class and where they went to school.
Re: the Supreme Court vs the Election. I have little doubt that the matter will wind up in the Supreme Court. There’s so much chaos already, part of it engendered by that Court, and I’m sure they expect to handle numerous cases brought by both sides.
Here’s the thing: The Court really bolloxed the 2000 election decision (which they seemed to understand by claiming it was a one off and not to be considered precedent.) For many people, that destroyed their reputation and it hasn’t been restored over the last 20 years. If they do it again, no one will pay any attention to the Court going forward. They will be seen as a purely partisan outfit worthless for fair judgments.
So what will they do? My guess is that they will refuse to rule on any case that could decide the election. They will rule in favor of state restrictions on voting, so long as it comes from the legislature, but against restrictions or liberalizations imposed by courts or from the executive. They will deny their own jurisdiction over the counting of votes, even if counting must continue beyond the date certain for state certification of results. That was what bolloxed them in 2000. They intervened where they had no jurisdiction.
Results may be muddled from the outset, and they may change repeatedly, but it will be up to the states to decide, not the courts. The Hail Mary of having legislatures decide the state electoral college representation, regardless of the votes of the people, is available and it may be used in some states. Ultimately, if things go way sideways, the election may be decided in the House of Representatives which could produce some surprises.
On the other hand, if the Boogaloos get antsy and up in arms — as some at least are preparing to do — we may see something else again…
I think we’re past the point of no return, Che`, or at least the boogaloo bois have. Been documented for all the world to see one of theirs shooting up a cop shop, looting and burning it. Their days of wink wink nod nod tacile support by law enforcement has past. We’ve seen it before, just recently with the bundy bois busting into that closed for the winter tourist kiosk out where I went to high school and calling it a gubbermint takeover. One’s dead, several imprisoned. There’s a pattern, same thing happened up in Montana twenty-five years ago, and Idaho before that, they took it for granted, pushed it too far, stepped over the line. Some are dead, some imprisoned.
I think the boogaloos, the pretty bois, half-percenters and oath breakers, have got the race war, the class war, they want. I just don’t think they know what to do with it.
You know, in the long run, this could turn out to be a good thing.
“How Straight Talk Helped One State Control COVID”
The state of Maine has the nation’s oldest population, with an average age of 45.1 versus 38.5 for the U.S. overall. It is also among the country’s poorest. Fewer than one third of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Yet despite these risk factors, Maine has a remarkably low prevalence of COVID-19: at last count, there have been 5,780 cases (about 430 per 100,000 people), 463 hospitalizations and 143 deaths. The state’s COVID-19 test positivity rate—averaging roughly 0.5 percent—is the lowest in the nation.
Imagine how the US would have fared if Trump had listened to someone like this instead of son-in-law Jared. Or dopes like that Scott Atlas fellow.
Well, TB, it appears the bois are all infiltrated. Whether they will be kneecapped or aided by their infiltrators remains to be seen. And yes, we’ve already seen plenty of violence and death at their hands.
Forcing an unwilling population to follow a shrinking minority who have the power of rule ultimately doesn’t work, but in the short term, it’s more than possible, has been done in this country many times, and is likely to happen again. The problem with this group of bois and their allies is that they have nothing on offer that could possibly be considered “better” for most or even many people. Power for its own sake quickly dissipates.
Anon don’t know what you are looking for, it’s possible some reddit political subs might be (those related to Sanders/social democracy/democratic socialism/progressivism maybe?) Twitter can be amusing for a bit, but is really largely a waste of time and I suspect has many bots for some topics as well, so one wastes time getting angry at bots.
Huh (since I’m the only ‘Anon’ who commented)? my comment yesterday was clear, in the very first paragraph, as to the information I was seeking:
Does anyone here know why, and when, Naked Capitalism stopped offering the option to enter a website connected to one’s user name when posting a comment (as Ian’s and many/most other Word Press site still do?). I recollect them offering that for quite a few years.
Naked Capitalism commenters used to be able to add their small website address (which was usually a WordPress, Blogspot, etcetera site) when making comments, which one could then link to if they were interested. Most small WordPress sites such as Ian’s still offer the courtesy of adding one’s website link to a comment they make. The reason why I was asking was made clear in the rest of my comment.
In case you, or anyone esle is wondering, I (for years now) no longer vote Democratic Party, and have never voted Republican or Libertarian. I’ll either not vote–as my life and the lives of those I love are increasingly in deadly shambles, with an emergency almost every day which makes voting a second, third, or non priority—or write in names. The main priority of my even commenting was addressing the ever increasing shutdown of ‘little person’ voices which exploded during the internet boom because millions didn’t, and still don’t, have such access; consequently noone hears their screams for mercy until they can be monetized into pulitzer winning clickbait piece—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edvard_Munch,_1893,_The_Scream,_oil,_tempera_and_pastel_on_cardboard,_91_x_73_cm,_National_Gallery_of_Norway.jpg.
At any rate, this response will have to suffice, I’ve put off things I desperately needed to do.
Stirling S Newberry
This is the “unknown peak” of COVID-19: not the cities on the coast but the in lands. Half of all casualties are in elder packahouses. Now, it is the small ones out of the way.
Zachary Smith
“Selective Arithmetic to Hide the F-35’s True Costs”
I’ve been a fan of Sanders for a long time. Not because he was especially wonderful, but on account of him not being nearly as bad as the others. His unwavering support of the F-35 program was one of his many serious weak points. Already the armed forces are looking to get away from this turkey – the Air Force is talking about a 6th generation fighter and the navy is also ducking and weaving.
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/10/selective-arithmetic-to-hide-the-f-35s-true-costs/
Zachary Smith
“Can You Use Aluminum Foil as a Faraday Cage?”
Ever since I learned North Korea was “specializing” in small yields with its nuclear program, I’ve suspected they were concentrating on an EMP weapon. Having a few of these would allow them to economize – only a few nukes would be needed and quite small rockets could carry them.
Is the information at the link any good? If the instructions are closely followed, I suspect the protection schemes would work. Still, I think I’d put a carefully sealed radio (or whatever) inside a large cookie tin in an attempt at added protection. In any case, have plenty of extra batteries, and do NOT put them inside the device being shielded. Leaking batteries was always a problem, but the Chinese have taken this issue to a brand new level. In my experience, Drug Store batteries need the closest supervision.
https://www.survivalsullivan.com/using-aluminum-foil-for-faraday-cages/
S Brennan
Something this excerpt from very well written story [below double lines] is remiss in pointing out, Sanders is the ONLY candidate that had a hand in rewriting the primary rules, both Jeff Weaver an Nina Turner were on the committee as was long time supporter Larry Cohen.
======================================
“It all began with the constantly changing and inscrutable criteria the DNC set for eligibility for the Democratic Presidential debates — which are the exclusive province of the Democratic Party, a private corporation. For the initial two debates in June and July, candidates had to either poll at least 1% in three approved national or early primary state polls or collect donations from at least 65,000 unique donors. However, although candidate Mike Gravel, a retired Senator who famously read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record during the Vietnam War and took a strongly progressive, anti-war stance, met the 65,000 donor qualification, he was nonetheless excluded from those debates by the DNC, with no explanation, resulting in him dropping out of the campaign after only three months in it. (Gravel’s campaign was intended as a vehicle to raise issues rather than a serious run for the Presidency, but that alone was evidently perceived as a threat by the DNC, given that Gravel’s platform was arguably the most radical of the Democratic candidates’.)
Requirements for candidates to qualify for subsequent debates were raised periodically — for instance, candidates needed to receive 130,000 unique donations AND at least 2% in four or more national or early state polls to qualify for the September and October debates. Though at least at first the requirements seemed reasonable, seemingly completely arbitrary decisions were made by the DNC about which polls to include as “qualifying” polls, as they would include one poll and exclude another poll from the same polling organization, or refuse to include polls sponsored by the highest-circulation newspapers in some of the early states. Gabbard seemed to suffer the worst from this arbitrariness, exceeding 2% in 26 polls prior to the September debate — but being excluded because only two of them were deemed “qualifying” polls.
Perhaps even more egregious was the decision to exclude her from the March 15 debate. Although the polling requirement of at least 10% in four “qualifying” polls was out of her reach, the DNC had also given candidates the opportunity to qualify by receiving at least one delegate in a primary, which Gabbard did by getting enough votes to win two delegates in American Samoa on March 3. Within days, the DNC changed the requirement under which she had qualified, requiring candidates to have received at least 20% of the delegates to qualify. As this would have disqualified all of the candidates besides Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden had they still been in the race, this change was clearly designed specifically to exclude Gabbard — the only remaining candidate besides Biden and Sanders by that time — from the debate, preventing her from having the opportunity to face only Sanders and Biden on what had previously been a very crowded debate stage (with there often having been 8–10 candidates onstage at once in previous debates).
In addition, as in 2016, the electoral process itself was heavily rigged to favor establishment candidates. Iowa, which had appeared to be destined to be an easy win for Sanders, was marred by a chaotic vote counting process in which an app that was supposed to total the votes mysteriously malfunctioned. Even the flagship of the Democratic establishment press, the New York Times, reported that the results were “riddled with inconsistencies and errors,” including mysterious “mistakes” in which votes cast for Bernie Sanders were (until caught by Sanders volunteers) given to candidates who barely even campaigned in Iowa. No results at all were reported on election night, and results trickled out gradually over the next week, with Pete Buttigieg mysteriously leading on “state delegate equivalents” even though Sanders was consistently ahead in the popular vote — though not by nearly as much as pre-primary polling had suggested. Buttigieg and the media declared Buttigieg the “winner” even though it is the popular vote that determines how many delegates are pledged to each candidate for the Democratic Convention. And in what was highly unlikely to be a coincidence, it turned out that the founder of the company that produced the malfunctioning app, Acronym, was married to a high-level official in Pete Buttigieg’s campaign. (In addition, several members of the team that designed the app also worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.) In several precincts where the popular vote was close between Sanders and Buttigieg (though in Sanders’ favor), delegates were awarded based on a coin flip, which in many cases appeared to have been rigged to favor Buttigieg. Comedian Jimmy Dore summed Iowa up well: “Apparently the Russians run the Iowa Democratic Party.”
In New Hampshire, the totals for precincts that used electronic voting machines (which are easily hackable) were widely discrepant from exit polling results, granting Pete Buttigieg 12% more votes than the exit polls suggested he had won, while tallies in precincts that used paper ballots matched the exit poll results closely. The final results for New Hampshire, like those for Iowa (which Bernie Sanders also won), were delayed by more than a week, robbing the Sanders campaign of momentum.
In Massachusetts, exit polls suggested that Sanders had won, but the vote totals (on electronic voting machines) gave the state to Biden. The discrepancy between the exit poll results and the voting results was 8.4%, more than double the poll’s margin of error. A large discrepancy also occurred in South Carolina, where Biden’s percentage of the vote was 8.3% higher than the percentage he received in the exit poll, a discrepancy likewise vastly in excess of the exit poll’s margin of error. The story was the same in Missouri, where not only did the discrepancy greatly exceed the exit poll’s margin of error, but for computerized vote totals, Sanders underperformed the exit poll by 11.4%, and Biden overperformed it by 9.3%.
The US Agency for International Development suggests that a discrepancy between exit polling results and voting results substantially in excess of the poll’s margin of error is grounds for suspicion of electoral fraud: “A discrepancy between the aggregated choices reported by voters [exit polls] and the official results may suggest, but not prove, that results have been tampered with.” The Organization of American States has sent election monitoring teams to countries with similarly poll-discrepant election results on hundreds of occasions. But no investigation of the US’s 2020 Democratic primaries is forthcoming, and little or no mention has been made of these irregularities in the corporate media — or, for that matter, by Bernie Sanders or his campaign staff. Instead, the media portrayed the sudden turnaround in Biden’s electoral fortunes as a rejection of Sanders’ policies — once again ignoring exit polling results, which showed strong support for Medicare For All and other reforms Sanders proposed, but questioning of his “electability,” likely because the media questioned his electability (and touted Biden’s).
Another form of electoral rigging in the 2020 primaries was attempts to suppress the vote in areas or among groups likely to be favorable to Bernie Sanders. According to the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), there was a “calculated effort to suppress the minority vote during [the March 3 primaries on] Super Tuesday” in 14 states. “Latinos have become the largest minority voting bloc in 2020, and our community is at the heart of the voting base in states like California and Texas. Yet, it is precisely in the largest minority communities around the country — specifically districts where the Latino vote makes the difference — that we are witnessing the biggest barriers for people to vote,” said Domingo Garcia, the organization’s president. Sanders led Biden by substantial margins among Latino voters in both Texas and California. But Latino voters encountered malfunctioning voting machines, closed or relocated polling places, and lines that were several hours long. Unable to stay away from jobs or other responsibilities for hours and hours, many voters left without being able to cast their votes. The same paucity of polling locations and hours-long lines occurred in many parts of the country for college students, who also heavily favored Bernie Sanders. Older voters are much more likely to vote early or by mail than younger voters, so any long delays on election day are likely to tilt election results toward candidates favored by older voters.
Another way that voting may have been rigged was that voter registrations were mysteriously switched to “no party preference” despite the voters having intended to register as Democrats so that they could vote in closed Democratic primaries. As of yet, it is not known for sure whether this was used as a means of discriminating against Sanders voters, but that was demonstrably the case in 2016.
Finally, combining sociopathic willingness to put voters’ lives at risks with the intention of suppressing election day in-person voting, several states (the most significant being Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin) insisted on holding their primaries as scheduled in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Not surprisingly, many voters facing the dilemma of risking their health versus foregoing exercising their voting rights chose the latter option, and in-person voter turnout was down considerably. Not surprisingly, a number of cases of coronavirus have been traced to being at polling places on election day. A poll worker in Illinois died from coronavirus.
In a nutshell, the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, like the 2016 primaries and many, many other US elections, were rigged from start to finish, likely costing Sanders and perhaps other candidates several percentage points in a number of states. The Democratic Party establishment pulled out all the stops”
https://jeffmelton.medium.com/rigged-how-the-corporate-democrats-thwarted-progressive-challengers-in-the-2020-primaries-1911514a31e9
Zachary Smith
At Naked Capitalism today:
“When Going Green Backfires: Eco-Friendly Car Wiring in Newer Cars Apparently Attracts Rats”
The headline is sort of misleading – I suspect the car’s designers simply made a bad choice. I’ve known for a fair while that rodents like certain types of plastic. Two 5-gallon containers of gasoline I had stored in an outbuilding had the small “air vent” caps completely chewed off while other gas can designs stored they were untouched.
https://www.core77.com/posts/102474/When-Going-Green-Backfires-Eco-Friendly-Car-Wiring-in-Newer-Cars-Apparently-Attracts-Rats
Cars were mentioned on another thread last week, and since then I’ve seen some “stuff” which puts me off on new automobiles in yet another way. For quite a long time the glass used in our cars has been tempered safety glass, but there is a growing trend towards laminated glass. The new stuff is terrifically strong, so much so that it is impervious to the “hammer” style glass breakers people carry for emergencies. Youtube videos show big men with big hammers unable to get into a car. How in hell is somebody supposed to get out if trapped inside? In the unlikely event I purchase a new car or truck, this is a topic which will get some serious consideration – I’ll be looking for something with at least one breakable window.
https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/investigations/10-investigates/laminated-car-glass-how-theyre-a-boon-for-safety-but-a-concern-for-rescuers/67-459958218
Anon
Does anyone here know why, and when, Naked Capitalism stopped offering the option to enter a website connected to one’s user name when posting a comment (as Ian’s and many/most other Word Press site still do?). I recollect them offering that for quite a few years.
Was it an expense problem, given how large the site has become, or something else? It strikes me as being yet another factor in small blogs shutting down. Falling through the cracks myself now for years, along with millions of others in the US (particularly renters, who’ve always sickeningly been considered lower class and punished accordingly; unless they rent a penthouse), Naked Capitalism is becoming increasingly difficult to read without being horrified by some of the comments of those (doing far better than most!) who are clueless as to how their pontificating comments, presumptions and ‘humor, ‘hurt deeply. Additionally I seem to recollect not near so much Troll™ naming and other patronizing slurs, even when it’s clear there’s just a disagreement (or worse, when the victim was actually correct when the facts are uncovered), or someone sighed over having spent precious time on a post which goes unposted. Further, with all the horrid surveillance internet scraping the damage done with such Toll™ naming and other slurs can be real life if someone is using their real name, or is easily identified.
I really miss the smaller blogs (which have shut down or are empty of comments) I used to travel between instead of Naked Capitalism, where there was far, far less Meritocracy™ going on, smaller blogs which I’m sure many who comment (or used to comment) at Naked Capitalism maintain[ed].
Zachary Smith
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/19/million-child-laborers-chocolate-supply/
Apologies for the link to the Warmongering Post, but my best alternative was a nasty click-bait site.
I’m a big fan of chocolate, and especially milk-based hot cocoa, but have few illusions about the quality of the product I’m consuming. Given how these youngsters are very nearly slave laborers, they have zero incentive to be concerned about the quality of the product they’re involved with. Chocolate powder can hide all sorts of “additions”, and I’m thinking specifically of good old dirt. Odd how none of the “consumer” sites ever run tests on this product. I know for a fact I once found a 2×2″ inch of heavy denim in a box of chocolate powder. Sabotage? Extremely low quality control? Your guess is as good as mine.
Hugh
Re Sanders and the F-35, the Vermont Air National Guard has 20 stationed in South Burlington. Standard politics.
I always looked at the F-35 as the Space Shuttle of fighters. The Space Shuttle was built as a one vehicle does it all craft. It was overpriced and didn’t do any of its missions particularly well. In space, if you are moving cargo, you need heavy lift. You don’t need a crew. And if you are moving people, you don’t need heavy lift. It’s like building a Rolls-Royce and using it to deliver coal, or a tanker to carry people, but you want it to be able to do both. That’s the F-35. Everything for everyone. The one that got me was that this airplane that costs hundreds of millions of dollars was going to do close ground support where it could be taken out by a few shells from an AK-47. And of course, we have all the stories where the F-35 (it would be funny if it weren’t so expensive) can’t do even basic things, you know like shoot straight.
It makes me want to riff on Shakespeare: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the MBAs and contractors.”
Hugh
Zachary Smith, what surprises me is that when you find something hinky in a can or package from a grocery chain and take it back to them, they never seem very surprised by it. It makes me think this happens more than we think.
Willy
Sanders.
Sanders appears far less the sheepdog to me, than he does they man who knows he can’t overcome the corporate-political complex as things are today, and has gone to the strategy of continuously reminding the hopeful Most Powerful Main In The World that America will continue to decline into kleptocracy under conservative policies.
So is it politically smarter to be an angry outspoken whistleblower martyr, than it is a the persistent but friendly advisor to power?
———–
“Ballot harvesting”
“Ballot harvesting” is a conservative smear for ballot collection and transport to the ballot box. It’s a system where a third party delivers ballots from voters too aged or infirmed to do it themselves. Conservatives believe that such a system could only ever be corrupted by the collectors/transporters who will somehow, magically be able to fake or dispose of ballots for each and every possible political view.
Tulsi Gabbard wants to eliminate that system, even though gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts are far more obvious and corrupt. There’s a mildly successful progressive youtuber who asked her to reconsider her stance, to become a bit more nuanced about it, and she refused to respond and twitter unfollowed him without explanation.
nihil obstet
Sanders. As I read somewhere, the hard-line left wing and the hard-line right wing dislike Sanders for the same reason — he works as far to the left as is possible in today’s political situation. More refusal to accommodate, and he lacks all influence.
I would prefer a harder line from Sanders, but given that his participation virtually always results in improved laws, I do not attack his judgment. And by improved laws, I don’t mean the usual “lesser of two evils”, which means that the result is worse than we have now, but purportedly better than we’d have if we didn’t agree with real evil. I mean an improvement over what we have now.
Willy
I ask because I lived the martyr route, with disastrous consequences. It would’ve been smarter to publicly capitulate and operate more privately, and strategically. There seems to be a glitch in human nature (for enough individuals to be considered the majority if not a sizeable mob) that wants an obvious threat or enemy to fight, instead of something more covertly insidious. Maybe they’re wired more for joining forces to fight cave bears and less some new disease?
Willy
I just saw a Trump TV commercial where Biden quotes were so clearly taken out of context, that only an idiot would think otherwise. The quotes involved “raising taxes” and “shutting down the economy”, as if anybody would believe that a candidate thinks they’d be successful promising those things. Maybe apparently, there are many who simply would.
different clue
@Willy,
There is a lot of induced idiocy, carefully cultured and nurtured. And non-idiots can “go idiot” when placed in a powerful Idiocy Field. So a lot of hearers will take those quotes as given.
Then too, that ad may have a side-strategy of luring the Biden forces into wasting their time and energy answering and refuting them. You have to mention “a thing” in order to refute that ” a thing”. That way, the “a thing” gets broadcast twice. The second time at your target’s own expense. So I suspect the Bidenites will spend very little energy responding.
The Bidenites could do the same thing with Trump quotes out of context, if they wanted to.
Do they want to win badly enough to do that?
“When they go low, we go high” . . . . is a disgustingly smarmy motto for Beautiful Losers.
“When they go low, we go lower” . . . would be a more Winning attitude.
Imagine it . . .
When they go low, we go lower.
When they go lower, we go apeshit.
When they go apeshit, we go nuclear.
Hugh
More than 50 million Americans have already voted, There aren’t a lot of undecided. Trump’s antics that worked in 2016 are a big fail this year due to covid and Trump fatigue. Trump is losing, and I think his loss will be big enough that our kangaroo Supreme Court won’t be able to pull it out for him.
Willy
Would now be a good time to link a REVEALING video from the ESTEEMED Dr. Steven Turley?
dc,
It all sounds good, except for that last line. It should read “When they go apeshit, we go nukular.” I know that partisans want to ignore the context, but I hope the undecided wouldn’t. I’d do a Biden commercial which plays the Trump snippet, then provides the entire quote right after. But then, I may nor may not be able to think like an undecided.
different clue
@Willy,
Thanks. That could well be an improvement. Now . . . do we spell that ‘nukular’ or ‘nucular’?
The hoity and the toity were/still are all raised to laugh when they hear the hoi and the polloi say it ‘nucular’. I know I was raised to laugh. But one fine day in the student co-ops at Big University, I met someone from Missouri. He said he was a graduate student in nukular engineering. I was about to correct his pronunciation for him, as per my training. But I luckily prevented myself in time and realized that he was the one who was smart enough to BE a nukular engineer. And since he was the one who was smart enough to BE one, he got to SAY it any way he LIKED.
Many years later I learned that ‘nukular’ versus ‘nookleeyur’ was as much a regional accent as a class marker.
George Shrubya Bush knew that very well when he affected to pronounce it ‘nukular’ When the hoity and the toity laughed at him, he knew his supporters would hear the hoity and the toity laughing at THEM.
Hugh
BTW Murkowski is going to vote for SCOTUS nominee Barrett, showing once again that a principled Republican Senator is an oxymoron. We used to call this doing the media star turn. Some politician would make sounds like they stood for something. They would get media coverage, milk it, and then fade when they actually had to do something.
And what do people think of Barrett’s idpol anti-feminism? Put a skirt on a load of anti-woman BS and that makes it OK, or at least barely mentionable. And no one questioned her being a Circuit Court judge or on SCOTUS –and having seven children (8 to 19, and the youngest with Down’s). There are only 24 hours in a day and man or woman you can’t be a parent, especially an all fambly values one, to that many kids and fill a heavy duty senior position on the federal judiciary.
Willy
dc,
Lenny Bruce had a bit where Einstein would never had made it if he’d had a southern accent. “I wanna tell ya’ll bout nukular fishin.” Booo! Get off the stage…
I saw an article about an attractive black man who was a progressive, who was suddenly praised by some of his conservative coworkers for “coming around”. They showed him a facebook profile where somebody had stolen his facebook picture from his real account and pasted it onto a fake profile, of a fictional black man who came to realize all the flaws of the “marxist, racist, and atheist” democratic party and had turned conservative.
So he posted an angry message to that ‘person’ demanding they remove his picture. His comment had his real name and that very same picture, which should’ve been enough to persuade anybody viewing that site that it was a fake. Instead, he watched in horror as one guy called him a troll and the fake site with his stolen picture gained thousands of additional new followers with nobody questioning anything, before he finally complained to facebook management.
This is an example of how dishonest and desperate some of these conservative operatives are, and how stupid their followers can be. Probably old news, but I assume this is related to that scam:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/facebook-removes-hundreds-of-fake-profiles-tied-to-pro-trump-group/ar-BB19Q8RO
The guy behind the scam, Charlie Kirk, had his mentor and funder die from coronavirus a few months ago, and was is still posting shit against mask wearing.
Zachary Smith
https://www.ianwelsh.net/open-thread-79/#comment-118759
Very apt phrase! From the wiki – “The term may also apply to a court held by a legitimate judicial authority which intentionally disregards the court’s legal or ethical obligations.”
That’s our very own Rightwingnut Supreme Court all right. The bad part is that the Democrats are quite unlikely to do anything to correct the situation – even if this becomes possible.
bruce wilder
“Ballot harvesting” seems to me just one of many vulnerabilities exposed by absentee or mail-in balloting. Even if Trump mentions it.
NL
If there is a modern version of the old saying, then it is “Let them eat voting!”. Let’s see if it will make us sate.
js
Anon don’t know what you are looking for, it’s possible some reddit political subs might be (those related to Sanders/social democracy/democratic socialism/progressivism maybe?) Twitter can be amusing for a bit, but is really largely a waste of time and I suspect has many bots for some topics as well, so one wastes time getting angry at bots.
Ché Pasa
Re: :NooKleAr: vs. :NooQueueLer: We know some folks retired from the Labs at Los Alamos. And yeah, they use both, depending on where they’re from. If they’re from the Midwest or South, it’s the former. If they’re from the Coasts, it’s the latter. And there can be some gentle ribbing about it. How the locals pronounce it is largely a matter of class and where they went to school.
Re: the Supreme Court vs the Election. I have little doubt that the matter will wind up in the Supreme Court. There’s so much chaos already, part of it engendered by that Court, and I’m sure they expect to handle numerous cases brought by both sides.
Here’s the thing: The Court really bolloxed the 2000 election decision (which they seemed to understand by claiming it was a one off and not to be considered precedent.) For many people, that destroyed their reputation and it hasn’t been restored over the last 20 years. If they do it again, no one will pay any attention to the Court going forward. They will be seen as a purely partisan outfit worthless for fair judgments.
So what will they do? My guess is that they will refuse to rule on any case that could decide the election. They will rule in favor of state restrictions on voting, so long as it comes from the legislature, but against restrictions or liberalizations imposed by courts or from the executive. They will deny their own jurisdiction over the counting of votes, even if counting must continue beyond the date certain for state certification of results. That was what bolloxed them in 2000. They intervened where they had no jurisdiction.
Results may be muddled from the outset, and they may change repeatedly, but it will be up to the states to decide, not the courts. The Hail Mary of having legislatures decide the state electoral college representation, regardless of the votes of the people, is available and it may be used in some states. Ultimately, if things go way sideways, the election may be decided in the House of Representatives which could produce some surprises.
On the other hand, if the Boogaloos get antsy and up in arms — as some at least are preparing to do — we may see something else again…
Ten Bears
I think we’re past the point of no return, Che`, or at least the boogaloo bois have. Been documented for all the world to see one of theirs shooting up a cop shop, looting and burning it. Their days of wink wink nod nod tacile support by law enforcement has past. We’ve seen it before, just recently with the bundy bois busting into that closed for the winter tourist kiosk out where I went to high school and calling it a gubbermint takeover. One’s dead, several imprisoned. There’s a pattern, same thing happened up in Montana twenty-five years ago, and Idaho before that, they took it for granted, pushed it too far, stepped over the line. Some are dead, some imprisoned.
I think the boogaloos, the pretty bois, half-percenters and oath breakers, have got the race war, the class war, they want. I just don’t think they know what to do with it.
You know, in the long run, this could turn out to be a good thing.
Zachary Smith
“How Straight Talk Helped One State Control COVID”
Imagine how the US would have fared if Trump had listened to someone like this instead of son-in-law Jared. Or dopes like that Scott Atlas fellow.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-straight-talk-helped-one-state-control-covid/
Ché Pasa
Well, TB, it appears the bois are all infiltrated. Whether they will be kneecapped or aided by their infiltrators remains to be seen. And yes, we’ve already seen plenty of violence and death at their hands.
Forcing an unwilling population to follow a shrinking minority who have the power of rule ultimately doesn’t work, but in the short term, it’s more than possible, has been done in this country many times, and is likely to happen again. The problem with this group of bois and their allies is that they have nothing on offer that could possibly be considered “better” for most or even many people. Power for its own sake quickly dissipates.
Anon
@js Re:
Huh (since I’m the only ‘Anon’ who commented)? my comment yesterday was clear, in the very first paragraph, as to the information I was seeking:
Naked Capitalism commenters used to be able to add their small website address (which was usually a WordPress, Blogspot, etcetera site) when making comments, which one could then link to if they were interested. Most small WordPress sites such as Ian’s still offer the courtesy of adding one’s website link to a comment they make. The reason why I was asking was made clear in the rest of my comment.
In case you, or anyone esle is wondering, I (for years now) no longer vote Democratic Party, and have never voted Republican or Libertarian. I’ll either not vote–as my life and the lives of those I love are increasingly in deadly shambles, with an emergency almost every day which makes voting a second, third, or non priority—or write in names. The main priority of my even commenting was addressing the ever increasing shutdown of ‘little person’ voices which exploded during the internet boom because millions didn’t, and still don’t, have such access; consequently noone hears their screams for mercy until they can be monetized into pulitzer winning clickbait piece—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edvard_Munch,_1893,_The_Scream,_oil,_tempera_and_pastel_on_cardboard,_91_x_73_cm,_National_Gallery_of_Norway.jpg.
At any rate, this response will have to suffice, I’ve put off things I desperately needed to do.