US Politics: The Roll Call Heard Across America

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Every state legislature has its batch of strange characters on both sides. Frankly a lot of people don't want those jobs, and staff can actually be paid better than EOs themselves in some places. 

Thanks for your little pearls of conventional wisdom, but interestingly state legislature pay is incredibly varied.  Ranging from California, where legislators make $114k a year with a $206 a day per diem, to New Hampshire where they make $100 dollars a year with no per diem.  Generally, legislators in "full time" states make pretty good money - $82K a year on average.  "Hybrid" legislatures pay $41k a year on average, and "part time" legislators earn an average of only $18k a year.

As for every state legislature having strange characters, no shit, but Jones is one of the only one's I know of that's publicly endorsed Trump.

[DanteGabriel]

On croissants: the reason I know our favorite local bakery is good is that a Parisian co-worker tried one of their croissants, and said with surprise, "These are actually not bad!"

On the "suspension" of changes at USPS until after the election: that just tells me they've done enough sabotage already. Or will just do it more quietly.

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

that just tells me they've done enough sabotage already. Or will just do it more quietly.

The former is my concern as well (or at least they think they've done enough), but the latter is rather impossible to do without exposing yourself to plenty of potential whistleblowing employees.

[JGP]

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

On the "suspension" of changes at USPS until after the election: that just tells me they've done enough sabotage already. 

Yup. In the last thread I shared a post from Twitter where a few people had superimposed all the affected areas with the 2016 elections results by county/state. If even say half of the outlined areas are mail sorting hubs, damage done. Mail hits the hub then stalls.   

[Tywin et al.]

53 minutes ago, DMC said:

Thanks for your little pearls of conventional wisdom, but interestingly state legislature pay is incredibly varied.  Ranging from California, where legislators make $114k a year with a $206 a day per diem, to New Hampshire where they make $100 dollars a year with no per diem.  Generally, legislators in "full time" states make pretty good money - $82K a year on average.  "Hybrid" legislatures pay $41k a year on average, and "part time" legislators earn an average of only $18k a year.

As for every state legislature having strange characters, no shit, but Jones is one of the only one's I know of that's publicly endorsed Trump.

$114k in Cali is not actually as much as you'd think, especially if you live far away from the capital and have to travel a lot and/or rent a place to not have to go back and forth. And a lot of people have to take pay cuts to work in a state legislature full time. Plus it's usually a thankless job, and you're still working insane hours even if you're working in one that is part time.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

@Rippounet the summer between graduating from university and going to law school my best friend and I went to Europe for 6 weeks, living in pensions and surviving on espresso and toast for breakfast, fruit for lunch and a real meal for dinner. We had some fantastic food and lots of mediocre house wine! We spent 4 weeks in Italy, 2 weeks in Slovenia (my friend said we had to or her relatives would never speak to her again) and then headed to France and Spain. We never got past Nice, because we found a lovely room to stay in, and used it as a base to visit Menton, Monte Carlo, and Cannes, and that funny pebbly beach in Nice was actually a great place to people watch in August. There was this restaurant on the Promenade des Americains, L’Aventura, spelled in Spanish not French (is that one r or two?) where we feasted like kings.

Anyway, my friend liked to wake up at 6:30 am, walk to a bakery down the street for opening and buy us croissants and coffee for breakfast every morning. That was heaven! And has been impossible to duplicate here, alas, with no local French bakery. My neighbourhood is Portuguese and the things they call croissants are an abomination. The local grocery store bakes decent croissants every morning, but nothing like the ones in Nice.

Poor, misguided Ty, right?

(My friend spoke 5 languages fluently, returning to Toronto to get her PhD (on full scholarship) and taught at the UofT her whole life.)

Great title -- Partner, who has been watching both nights from start to finish, was indeed impressed by the roll call, particularly when North Dakota spoke in Mandan -- particularly considering the Peoples's struggles there are being treated by both state and feds around fracking, the pipe line, the virus and everything else.

As for Trent Corbin quoted in the WaPo --didn't have have to exit the AOC campaign a year ago, during her stumping in the latinx communities for Bernie, because of his over the top berniebro -- and then joined the Bernie campaign officially.

A true French croissant is something like simultaneously breathing and tasting the air of heaven.  There is nothing else like it.  Bakeries in the former Democratic Republic of Congo flew croissants in every morning from France's Midi.  

We have a true French bakery in our neighborhood, with all the bakers, and ingredients they use, French. I mean French, like born there and living there until relatively recently.  They also create spectacular King Cakes for Mardi Gras, among their many splendid items.  We have had to consciously not go there except for special occasions -- and they are right by the Library.  Still, even so, no matter how early in the morning, their croissants are not quite up to the experience of a French cafe for croissants and coffee at 7 AM.  Yet, theirs are still excellent+++++.

The garbage that comes in plastic bags in a supermarket is just that.

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

$114k in Cali is not actually as much as you'd think, especially if you live far away from the capital and have to travel a lot and/or rent a place to not have to go back and forth. And a lot of people have to take pay cuts to work in a state legislature full time. Plus it's usually a thankless job, and you're still working insane hours even if you're working in one that is part time.

Most of my extended family lives in Cali, and yes, $114k is still a pretty damn good salary.  Plus the per diem, plus the mileage reimbursement.  California legislators are not "taking pay cuts to work full time."  I'm not even sure what that means.  And if you look at the second link in my post, the NCSL actually estimates the amount of time each type of legislature requires for their members on average.  For full-time, it's 84% of a full-time job, for hybrid 74%, and for part time it's 57%.  Part time legislators are definitely not working "insane hours."

[Zorral]

Gotta give the Dems this much: the women who filled the big featured speaker slots, such as Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, were and remain accomplished, professional women, who continue(d) to work and accomplish in their own right, even while -- as with Jill Biden -- and after -- as with the First Lady -- when their time as married to spouse's position was over.  Jill Biden has really been teaching all this time -- she didn't even stop while VP's spouse.

Rethugs don't have women like them.  They have a plagiarist with no style as first lady, who was trafficked into the US as an illegal immigrant and introduced to trump by Jeffrey Epstein, i.e. in Pence's circles, someone his wife would label a whore  -- who even ripped off a speech given previously by true First Lady -- who, like her beyond gross spouse, is a standard by which to display contempt for the USA, for voters and everyone who isn't Themselves.

So why in hell does susan collins get a speaking slot at the Dem con? She wrote the goddamn bill that 15 years ago crippled the post office.

 

[DanteGabriel]

33 minutes ago, Zorral said:

 

So why in hell does susan collins get a speaking slot at the Dem con? She wrote the goddamn bill that 15 years ago crippled the post office.

 

Wait, what?

[Ormond]

2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Wait, what?

Yes, I can find news reports that Sara Gideon, Susan Collins' opponent, spoke at the Democratic convention, but none saying Collins will speak there. 

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Ormond said:

Yes, I can find news reports that Sara Gideon, Susan Collins' opponent, spoke at the Democratic convention, but none saying Collins will speak there. 

Susan Collins has no reason to speak at the DNC convention, and the Democrats have no reason to want here there.  If she wanted to switch parties and run as an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, the time to do that was many months ago. 

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Susan Collins has no reason to speak at the DNC convention, and the Democrats have no reason to want here there.  If she wanted to switch parties and run as an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, the time to do that was many months ago. 

Schumer's SuperPAC just launched a six figure ad-buy against Collins attacking her role in helping to create the current USPS crisis:

Quote

The ad from Senate Majority PAC (SMP) centers on Collins’s role in passing the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which required the Postal Service to create a $72 billion fund for its employees' post-retirement health care costs, spanning 75 years into the future. No other federal agency is subject to such a requirement.

Democrats widely blame that measure for much of the Postal Service’s current financial woes, which have emerged in recent weeks as a top concern of Democrats, who fear that a weakened Postal Service could disrupt mail-in voting in the November elections and potentially lead to scores of ballots going uncounted.

The SMP digital ad, shared first with The Hill, places the blame for the Postal Service’s problems squarely on Collins, who was the lead sponsor of the PAEA in the Senate. 

So, yeah, I don't think she'll be showing up.

[Toth]

59 minutes ago, Zorral said:

A true French croissant is something like simultaneously breathing and tasting the air of heaven.  There is nothing else like it.  Bakeries in the former Democratic Republic of Congo flew croissants in every morning from France's Midi.  

... reading all this colorful talk about French pastries somehow oddly reminds me of how my grandfather's entire WW2 experience as a ship cook stationed at occupied Le Havre apparently boiled down to gushing about French food...

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Most of my extended family lives in Cali, and yes, $114k is still a pretty damn good salary.  Plus the per diem, plus the mileage reimbursement.  California legislators are not "taking pay cuts to work full time."  I'm not even sure what that means.  And if you look at the second link in my post, the NCSL actually estimates the amount of time each type of legislature requires for their members on average.  For full-time, it's 84% of a full-time job, for hybrid 74%, and for part time it's 57%.  Part time legislators are definitely not working "insane hours."

My step-brother makes close to that in L.A. and he has to have 4-5 roommates to afford the cost of living. This is a pretty common thing to hear from people living in the urban hubs in the state. And yes I understand that there are additional revenue streams, but they don’t necessarily offset the costs of travel, cost of living, etc. As far as taking pay cuts though, many state legislators are lawyers, and the salaries they receive are way below their market value in many cases. Also, I’m not sure how the NCSL calculates things, but it was pretty common for me to see part time legislators working 12+ hours a day and that map indicates that being a legislator in most states means you have to have another job. That’s not appealing work to most people, especially to the most qualified people.

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

On croissants: the reason I know our favorite local bakery is good is that a Parisian co-worker tried one of their croissants, and said with surprise, "These are actually not bad!"

On the "suspension" of changes at USPS until after the election: that just tells me they've done enough sabotage already. Or will just do it more quietly.

Read an article a while back about how Trump specializes in wasting people's time. Which is more serious than it sounds, as it is often wasting time of organizations, lawyers, politicians, etc. He drops these grenades, often unconstitutional, then walks away. It takes very little effort on his part, but then you have teams all these people and orgs cleaning up the mess and he's moved on to the next one. And some of them get by, like the Muslim ban and the wall funding. And it leaves everyone exhausted. Hopefully voters are tired of the constant chaos though.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This is a pretty common thing to hear from people living in the urban hubs in the state.

It's really not.  I visit San Diego/Oceanside and LA every summer (well, not this summer) and sometimes SF as well.  None of my extended family, which is probably about two dozen adults now counting spouses, report anything like such difficulties.

And of course state legislators make less money than they could in the private sector.  That's a pretty basic tenet of public service and true of essentially any elected office throughout the world - as it should be.  Not to mention, many state legislators sought that position because they have further electoral ambitions, or to make connections that enable them to secure much more lucrative positions in the private sector (not to mention, ya know, all the corruption in state politics).

As for the NCSL, read the link!

Quote

Estimated proportion of a full-time job spent on legislative work including time in session, constituent service, interim committee work, and election campaigns. Source: 2014 NCSL survey of all state legislators.

In other words, the data is based on self-reporting from a survey.  I doubt any state legislators are low-balling how many hours they work.  If anything those percentages are inflated.  The fact is, outside of New Hampshire, almost all state legislators are compensated at at least a fair amount commiserate to how much time they spend on their duties.  Stop making them out like they're Norma Rae.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Yes, I can find news reports that Sara Gideon, Susan Collins' opponent, spoke at the Democratic convention, but none saying Collins will speak there. 

I read it in the WaPo -- or the NYT!  Could the writer possibly have gotten a fact ... rong?  Naaaah, that never happens.  If I recall correctly, I read it in the list that featured Kasich's name of Grrr8 rethugs getting featured spots. But I'm very glad she's not getting a spot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I like this Slate piece's look at the virtual Dem Nom Con:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/conventions-always-virtual-better-democrats.html

Quote

 

[....]
But after two nights, the Zoom-style convention has been a pleasant surprise: It’s remarkably watchable and more appropriate for this moment in history.
[....]
The preprogrammed setup reduces the role of TV journalists in the broadcast, which—I hate to say it as a journalist—is just fine from a viewer perspective. Moderators Eva Longoria and Tracee Ellis Ross have ably emceed, albeit from a sort of weird CGI stage.
[....]
Most importantly, the focused and serious (mostly) tone of the event feels more appropriate to a moment of grave national crisis than a normal convention would have. Nobody is really in the mood for backstage drama, pageantry, confetti, and cutaway shots of drunken delegates in funny hats right now. If nothing else, the format is a stark reminder of the situation that made it necessary, and the president responsible for that situation.

I wouldn’t mind if virtual conventions became the norm, even after the pandemic passed. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely. In addition to being television events, these conventions also serve as massive trade shows for the professional politics industry. And you’re going to have a hard time convincing politicians to forgo receiving rapturous applause from a stadium full of supporters. This year is likely to be an anomaly.
[....]

 

 

[Rippounet]

11 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

George Takei:

”The RNC has confirmed Bellatrix LeStrange and Ramsey Bolton have been added to their list of GOP Convention speakers”

I actually laughed out loud and my 3 year old asked me why. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

It's really not.  I visit San Diego/Oceanside and LA every summer (well, not this summer) and sometimes SF as well.  None of my extended family, which is probably about two dozen adults now counting spouses, report anything like such difficulties.

Yep, I was quite surprised at the low prices around Oceanside when I would visit their wknds away from Vegas.

I could easily get a room within walking distance to the pier/beach for around $100 night. Not bad considering imo.

Now aways up the coast and I started hitting $10 cup of coffee land, I'm moving on, not my taste. But point was you could find decent prices in the right areas with just a modicum of effort. Really have nothing but fond memories of Oceanside.

As for the legislators getting 114K w/ 200 a day per diem that sounds about right imo, a lot of the Union building Trades manage to do well getting around $40 an hr plus bennies, still quite below the lawmakers and no one is hearing them whine.

[Tywin et al.]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

It's really not.  I visit San Diego/Oceanside and LA every summer (well, not this summer) and sometimes SF as well.  None of my extended family, which is probably about two dozen adults now counting spouses, report anything like such difficulties.

The handful of people I'm friends who live in SD always talk about how expensive it is to live there and how even with good jobs they can't own property or save much money. Everyone's experience is different though. It was interesting looking up what qualifies as low income in the three cities. SD was actually surprisingly low, and LA was not as high as I expected (but there could be a few factors at play here), but SF was extremely high as expected. The thing I hear from all my friends and family in CA though is how damn expensive it is to live in or around the major cities. One of my best friend's annual rent is over $35k, for example. 

Quote

And of course state legislators make less money than they could in the private sector.  That's a pretty basic tenet of public service and true of essentially any elected office throughout the world - as it should be.  Not to mention, many state legislators sought that position because they have further electoral ambitions, or to make connections that enable them to secure much more lucrative positions in the private sector (not to mention, ya know, all the corruption in state politics).

This is all true, but for most people with the best intentions, a giant pay cut would stop them from seeking any office, especially in an expensive state.

Quote

As for the NCSL, read the link!

In other words, the data is based on self-reporting from a survey.  I doubt any state legislators are low-balling how many hours they work.  If anything those percentages are inflated.  The fact is, outside of New Hampshire, almost all state legislators are compensated at at least a fair amount commiserate to how much time they spend on their duties.  Stop making them out like they're Norma Rae.

I'm at work, I had to skim it. 

And if we're being fair, technically most of them could claim it's a 24/7/365 job anyways. 

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

no one is hearing them whine.

That's the rub. A lot of these positions should get paid a lot more as things are, but nobody wants to hear it. One way to fix some things without paying them more is to pass massive campaign finance reform while reducing the length of campaigns so they don't have to work insane hours fund raising and stumping. That would also likely lead to better candidates.