US Politics: Par, Don, for the Course

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

14 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

And so they roll out.

Four Blackwater mercenaries, convicted of murderIng civilians in Iraq, pardoned along with the political scum.

"Drain the swamp!" 

Remember that one? 'Seems like so long ago. Ah, good times.

[SpaceChampion]

15 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Now it's only a maybe, coming from Trump himself, in an official speech as president.

 

I guess when he declares martial law it's be the grammar police that'll arrest him and haul him out of the White House.  Possibly backed up by a grand alliance of the librarians, the book editors and the slush pile readers.   "Ah ha!  You said maybe!"

Look for their coming on the first light of the 20th day of the first month; at dawn look to the east wing.

[Kalbear]

Trump managing to fuck up even giving people a trifle is pretty on brand. 

[Zorral]

This is infuriating -- the excuse is this will save the restaurant industry money and thus save it.  There are such better ways to do that, all of them by giving the workers, front and back, protections, both physical and financial.

https://www.businessinsider.com/restaurants-can-take-now-take-more-of-their-workers-tips-2020-12
 

Quote

 

A new rule published by the Department of Labor on Tuesday would allow restaurant owners to take employees' tips to pay "back-of-the-house" workers such as cooks and dishwashers.

An analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found that change could cost workers more than $700 million.

The regulation would also allow employers to require tipped employees to perform more nontipped labor like cleaning.

"It's really, really clear this is about the interests of corporate executives and shareholders," Heidi Shierholz, an economist at EPI, told Business Insider.

 

 

[argonak]

Presidential Pardon power needs to be eliminated.   Its too open for abuse.

[argonak]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

This is infuriating -- the excuse is this will save the restaurant industry money and thus save it.  There are such better ways to do that, all of them by giving the workers, front and back, protections, both physical and financial.

https://www.businessinsider.com/restaurants-can-take-now-take-more-of-their-workers-tips-2020-12
 

 

Well this seems like a scam for restaurant owners, i've never understood why the waiter gets a tip and the cook gets nothing.  I'd rathe tip the guy who made my food, then the guy who just carried it twenty feet.

But then I normally despise tipping culture (covid pandemic time being an exception, I tip extra right now).  I normally tip, but I absolutely hate it.  Pay your employees, don't make me do it.  

I'm probably just jealous though, because nobody ever gave me any tips in any of my jobs (none in the waiting industry).

[Zorral]

It still racially and historically tone deaf, giving white people moving to Hot 'Lanta in the last decade or so the credit for Biden's victory in Georgia.  It was Black Women, the incredible activist coalition that Stacey Abrams worked with.  After generations of slavery and Jim Crow and the rest, black people in many communities in the South, from Maryland to Texas, have no trust in anything a white person says or promises.  Not after generations in which just being in the presence of a white person, enslaved or not, meant deliberate abuse, both physical and mental.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

This is infuriating -- the excuse is this will save the restaurant industry money and thus save it.  There are such better ways to do that, all of them by giving the workers, front and back, protections, both physical and financial.

https://www.businessinsider.com/restaurants-can-take-now-take-more-of-their-workers-tips-2020-12
 

 

This once again proves my point.  If you want to do something, like support an industry, SUPPORT THE INDUSTRY FOR FFS.  Don't try to "incentivize" behavior through a tax break to help the industry.  It's just such terrible policy.  All it means is that Jane Q. Taxpayer is going to effectively subsidize 37 cents of every dollar I (and my partners) spend at Le Bernadin post vaccine with "clients."  It's not helping ANYONE (including my desire for perfectly cooked fish) any time soon.

I'm still not going to a restaurant any time soon and I am "seeing" my clients over zoom until at least next July and probably next September!

[Fragile Bird]

Hey, speaking of new rules, the Trump administration has taken steps to roll back more of those damn red-tape regulations! The FDA has proposed scrapping the frozen cherry pie regulations! More flexibility for the industry! Cheaper cherry pies! 
 

Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the FDA who has been very straightforward and impressive talking about Covid-19, tweeted that it was due to hard work by his team starting in 2018 that had made deregulating frozen cherry pies possible! The American people are now free to add extra fruit, sugar and to make the pie crust extra thick!

Freedom Pie has been achieved!

What changed? The regulation previously covered the thickness of the pastry (oh, thicker pastry now, yum!) the quality of cherries, makers had to avoid using rotten or blemished fruit, restricting that to 15% of the fruit (yum, more rotting cherries in the pie!), and the pies had to contain at least 25% by weight of actual fruit. And no artificial sweeteners could be used.

Poor Scott Gottlieb, he thinks manufacturers will put in more fruit and he thinks more sugar and artificial sweetener is a good thing!

Freedumb pie!

[SpaceChampion]

This sounds really good because usually run-off participation is more like ~55% of general election voters.

[GrimTuesday]

What the fuck is even going on in the White House?

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

What the fuck is even going on in the White House?

 

Vindictive baby is being a vindictive baby. Duh! This is what those cuckservatives get for not sufficiently standing up for him.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Just now, Chataya de Fleury said:

Trust me, we are all so sick of 10 mailers a day, and BILLBOARDS. Seriously, I count no fewer than four billboards for/against on my way to my usual haunts (the local garden center that sells my birdseed and W’s house).

I've never understood why campaigns do this. For example, in 2012 I was loaned out to Obama's campaign for the last six or eight weeks of the election cycle. They made us contact the same people multiple times per week, even when people were threatening not to support him if we didn't leave them the fuck alone. When I brought this up to more senior people they said to ignore the complaints and keep reaching out to them. It got to the point where I just started lying to them. It was analytics run amok. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

This was in the general election, but I got 30-40 texts and numerous phone calls before actual election day if I had already voted, was going to vote, or if I had a plan to vote for different groups ranging from the MI democratic party to Planned Parenthood to some other citizen's groups I didnt even recognize. I choose only to reply to a few texts and answer 1-2 phone calls, but it was annoying how these groups seemed to not be coordinated in any way, and managed to create significant overlap. Just seemed like wasted effort.

The one good thing about that outreach is that they probably managed to drum into people's heads that the non-partisan section was important too, and to vote for the judges endorsed by the Democratic party.

[Fragile Bird]

29 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

What the fuck is even going on in the White House?

 

Two things: Trump is angry at the requirement to change the names of military bases named after Confederate generals, and he wants Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to be repealed and the statute didn’t do that. Section 230 is the one that protects tech companies like Facebook and Twitter from being sued for the things users post.

The CDA has nothing to do with defense, but that’s what he wanted. 

[DMC]

4 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Quite possibly the only good thing the man has done. If for entirely selfish reasons.

Maybe I'm just being a dick, but I wouldn't even count this as a good thing he's done.  (And this of course assumes a boost in direct payments actually gets passed and he actually signs it instead of changing his mind again to garner even more attention.)  If he wanted to get credit for securing increased direct payments/covid relief, he had a golden opportunity to pressure McConnell/the Senate GOP - who were the only one's holding it up at the time - into doing so before the election. 

And then he had another opportunity to step into the negotiations after the election instead of devoting 100% of his time on his sulking insane obsession.  Both of these opportunities, btw, would still have been for entirely selfish reasons.  You don't get credit for tweeting a 4 minute poorly-produced video, after a veto-proof majority finally reached an agreement, in which most of the time spent is you whining about pointless bullshit.

58 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

This sounds really good because usually run-off participation is more like ~55% of general election voters.

Those numbers are promising, aye - up to this point.  Gotta figure though it's gonna be tough to keep pace over the holidays, which basically encompasses the next 11 days, otherwise known as up to the day before election day.

43 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

What the fuck is even going on in the White House?

As opposed to last night's announcement, this has been anticipated for awhile.  It's why McConnell already announced the Senate will have to return next week for an override vote (which will almost surely pass).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Trust me, I’ve gotten very cynical. I won’t answer the phone for Georgia Democrats anymore. I just don’t want to hear it. “Yes, I voted for Ossoff and Warnock and even the public services guy what’s-his-name. Now, GO AWAY,” is what I want to say but I am too nice to say it. 

It’s analytics and way too much FUCKING* out of state time and money poured into this race. Half the postcards I get from “concerned voters like me” are from Pennsylvania. And bless their hearts for caring so much, but....

As my son said “I find I really don’t like living in a swing state where my vote really does matter.”

 

* see? I feel so strongly about this, I will swear out loud.

Big FUCKING deal.

Also, you can ask them to flag your file as do not call. But I'll address the issue with that in a second. As to the out of state issue, I've always wrestled with the idea that maybe it should be banned. 

17 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

but it was annoying how these groups seemed to not be coordinated in any way, and managed to create significant overlap. Just seemed like wasted effort.

So I sure things have changed somewhat since I was a campaign staffer, but part of the problem is there is some shared baseline info, but the more advanced stuff is more guarded. Say 10 different groups are alerted that Chats' household has multiple residents marked as SDs. They all have various incentives to reach out to said household. But say the third group to contact her is told she wants to be flagged as DNC. Maybe the person will do it and maybe they won't. If they do, there's no guarantee that any of the other groups will see it. Candidates typically don't want to share their voter info even if they're on the same team, and they sure as shit aren't going to be providing it to third party advocacy groups. Then factor in that these groups each have an algorithm that tells them they need to contact SD households X times per week/month. If each group believes they need to contact said household twice every ten days, and they're not sharing the information with other groups, well, that's a lot of fucking phone calls.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

As opposed to last night's announcement, this has been anticipated for awhile.  It's why McConnell already announced the Senate will have to return next week for an override vote (which will almost surely pass).

Which highlights that he's being an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole. I'm not sure how you feel about the notion of the Trumps retaining control of the party until 2024, but he sure is doing a lot of things at the end to weaken his relationship with the elites. 

[The Anti-Targ]

 

1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

What the fuck is even going on in the White House?

 

I mean, why give the military any money if it doesn't do it's number 1 job of keeping the president in power regardless of the will of the people that it be otherwise. That's how it works in Russia and North Korea, and they are super cool places.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

@Tywin et al. - what is “SD”?

Surely a Democrat?

Suavely Democratic?

Swanky Democrat, obviously.

(The S stands for Strong, it means you're a reliable straight ticket Democrat and that you're more likely to donate and volunteer)