US Politics: Biden Hood - Prince of Plebs

[Fury Resurrected]

4 hours ago, Fez said:

Low wages are definitely part of it, especially in some industries. In others, I think supply shortages are meaning that employers simply aren't hiring as much as previously expected. Plus I think in some areas there's still the issues around schools and day cares not being fully open, leading to some parents staying home more. And there's issues around some people not feeling safe yet for some kinds of in-person work.

Lots of competing issues going on. And I think this report will put additional pressure on Democrats to get the infrastructure bill passed quickly.

There’s also the elephant in the room that some    people will not be going back to work because they are dead or suffering from long Covid or blood clots after recovery.

[Starkess]

17 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Untrained citizens are trying to find traces of bamboo on last year’s ballots, seemingly trying to prove a conspiracy theory that the election was tainted by fake votes from Asia. 

That...please tell me that cannot be real. what the actual f

[Jaxom 1974]

So...this Arizona thing...the "recount" of looking for bamboo, the unofficial, no standing look for voter fraud...the one that is going slower than molasses uphill, so slow that they don't even have the space rented long enough to go through with the insanity...

...it's going to end up declaring Arizona should have gone to Trump no matter what happens, right?  

[Varysblackfyre321]

8 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

So...this Arizona thing...the "recount" of looking for bamboo, the unofficial, no standing look for voter fraud...the one that is going slower than molasses uphill, so slow that they don't even have the space rented long enough to go through with the insanity...

...it's going to end up declaring Arizona should have gone to Trump no matter what happens, right?  

Probably. The previous audit there need be never mentioned to the GQP.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Stealing someone else's joke, why don't they just get some pandas from the San Diego Zoo to inspect the ballots for bamboo? 

[williamjm]

30 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Stealing someone else's joke, why don't they just get some pandas from the San Diego Zoo to inspect the ballots for bamboo? 

Obviously the pandas are agents of the Chinese Communist Party and are therefore in on the conspiracy.

[DMC]

34 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Obviously the pandas are agents of the Chinese Communist Party and are therefore in on the conspiracy.

This is starting to sound suspiciously like you all are trying to ruin my day after my Day of Jubilee..

 

[ThinkerX]

3 hours ago, Starkess said:

That...please tell me that cannot be real. what the actual f

sadly, it appears to not only 'real,' but barely scratching the surface.  (Thanx, Wilbur, for your contribution).

I figure it might get bad enough to where people get arrested and charges filed.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 5/6/2021 at 11:32 AM, Mindwalker said:

I don't know if Gates is making any money from the vaccines. I also don't know why he is supposed to be an expert for... well, everything. I'd like to hear from independent experts about the problems. Knowing that India is the biggest vaccine manufacturer in the world, I somehow doubt that these problems are as insurmountable as the corporations want us to believe. It's about profits.

As for Gates, apart from his god complex, I think he fears a ripple effect for copyrights in other industries. Which is stange because this is something so very different, but compare to that Hollwood initiative/ open letter against waiving the patents.

I brought this up earlier this year--that people like Gates, hoarding the majority of wealth--allows them to make decisions that impact the rest of us. Just because they call themselves philanthropists (and donate) doesn't mean they're doing what's best for the rest of us. 

Gates isn't an expert. He's a billionaire, and he, and a handful of others, are making decisions that impacts billions of people. It's ridiculous. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

22 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Hunger rates plummet after two rounds of stimulus
Republicans have long sought to shrink government aid, but Democrats see the data as proof that the direct payments are working as intended.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/07/hunger-rates-plummet-after-stimulus-485604

 

My biggest issue is that I don't see more direct payments coming. They've had a demonstrably positive effect, and despite opposition, Democrats should be pounding the table for more and, this is a fault of Biden, actually promote the good they're doing. I think Joe wants to be a bit humble or something, but that doesn't work. People have to be explicitly shown what good is happening.

[HoodedCrow]

Okay, maybe Bill Gates is pretty so, so,  with a low EQ and a high IQ:(

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

IQ is a pretty basic way of understanding intelligence these days. And while @Centrist Simon Steele and I don't agree on a number of things, he's right to point out that it's fucked up that a handful of billionaires make decisions that govern all of our lives because guess what, most of them are pretty average when it comes to intelligence, and often times they got ahead not because they are the best of us, but because they're the worst people we produced willing to do whatever it takes.

[DanteGabriel]

30 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

IQ is a pretty basic way of understanding intelligence these days. And while @Centrist Simon Steele and I don't agree on a number of things, he's right to point out that it's fucked up that a handful of billionaires make decisions that govern all of our lives because guess what, most of them are pretty average when it comes to intelligence, and often times they got ahead not because they are the best of us, but because they're the worst people we produced willing to do whatever it takes.

Yeah, I don't think Gates has had as much influence as the Kochs, Mercers, Waltons, Adelsons, etc and they are all demonstrably worse people than Gates.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Yeah, I don't think Gates has had as much influence as the Kochs, Mercers, Waltons, Adelsons, etc and they are all demonstrably worse people than Gates.

I'm about to finish up Kurt Andersen's Evil Geniuses, and it's rather shocking how such a small group of people have had such an impact on not just U.S., but global politics over the last four decades.

[Wilbur]

On 5/7/2021 at 9:30 AM, Wilbur said:

Any and every time the subject arises in news report, on Nextdoor, in discussions with neighbors, the whole clown show boils down to the question, "Are these guys educationally subnormal or just hypocrites?"

The AZ State Senators who demanded the count didn't actually take any practical steps to make it happen.  When they finally got around to reserving the Madhouse on McDowell (Veterans Memorial Coliseum, owned by the state), they didn't reserve it for a period long enough to actually do a compete recount.  The Phoenix School District graduation ceremonies have put a 20-day hard stop date on the process, and there is literally no way for the "audit" process to finish within that 20-day graduation window.

The state owns the Madhouse, so while they don't have to pay any rent, they do have to fully operate the place to the tune of $1,000 a day to start, but not actually ever finish, the process.

The charlatans that the Senate hired, "Cybers Ninjas", are a group of Trump loyalists with no particular, evident expertise in ballot audits.  They have excellent skills in latching onto the government teat and extracting taxpayer dollars, however.  Also, they are subject matter experts in making assertions about how the process will work, who will participate, etc. and then immediately violating the assertions and making exceptions to the stated controls.

The Senate took custody of the ballots, but then didn't have the knowledge or ability to maintain ballot security or integrity once they had custody.  Then the Cyber Ninjas took custody, and news reports indicate that they lost control of the container sequence, so they may not actually know what ballots are in what boxes at this point.

The Senate insulted and offended Maricopa County Elections officials by their wild statements to the press about, basically saying that the MC elections officials were corrupt, incompetent, or both.  Thus county elections officials (many of whom are, duh, Republicans - this is Arizona) told the Senate Republicans to piss up a rope.  Elections officials are complying with the letter of the subpoena, but otherwise providing zero assistance to the Senate Republicans.  That is why the Senate has to use the Madhouse rather than the Maricopa County Elections facilities.  Also, the long-time County Republicans who have served the public in this roles have basically told the current Trumpkin Senate Republicans to eat shit and die, and donations to the State Republican organization, controlled by these Senate Republicans, have dried up completely.

The Senate hired Cyber Ninjas without a contractual payment amount.  Most estimates are that the state will end up paying Cyber Ninjas $3 million for the work this month.  Maybe Cyber Ninjas will get more time on the government teat later, too, after the graduation exercises!

Cyber Ninjas had trouble staffing their project, so news reporters volunteered to staff the audit, as Cyber Ninjas had prevented news institutions from entry.  It didn't take long for Cyber Ninjas to start ejecting reporters working as staff, because the reporters reported on how disorganized and confused the process was.

Cyber Ninjas filed an audit process document with the courts, detailing how they would perform their ballot audits.  Unfortunately they don't seem to have read any of the Arizona state regulations for performing a ballot audit, so their process isn't actually permitted.  Cyber Ninjas originally asked for the Maricopa County Election officials help, and Elections officials, in a spirit of Republican solidarity, told them to go read the law and also jump off a cliff.  In addition, Elections officials told Cyber Ninjas that any future communications would have to go through the Maricopa County Attorney, who is a Republican, and who seems to have made it her personal goal to crap on Cyber Ninjas.  Furthermore, the cameras on the floor reveal that they are not following the Arizona regulations OR their own documented process.  Also, the proposed plan can't be completed prior to graduation, even by Cyber Ninjas own optimistic procedures filed with the court.

Cyber Ninjas set up live camera feeds of the Madhouse count, but failed to take any steps to maintain voter privacy.  So ballot information was on display on some camera feeds, and confusion, indolence, and general lack of effort was on display in other feeds.  So basically an extension of the Trump administration writ small.

Cyber Ninjas then had on their staff a guy who was part of the January 6 insurrection.  Nice.  Cyber Ninjas' procedures have no plans for bipartisan observers, which might have made it possible for them to get enough audit staff without resorting to using news reporters.  So basically they made their own sharp stick and jumped immediately onto it.

One part of the Cyber Ninjas plan was to verify voters by going out and knocking on doors to ensure that the voter on the ballot was in fact registered to vote, lived in Maricopa County, and was an American citizen.  Reports state that Cyber Ninja staff assigned to this task didn't show up on on several days, which shouldn't be a surprise, as I can't think of a better way of learning whether or not a homeowner is armed and insulted than by knocking on his or her door and asking those specific questions.  A Phoenix fireman I know, a Trump guy, mentioned that there was already one such confrontation.  I just laughed when I heard this.

The plan to go out and canvas voters also violates the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which prevents voter intimidation, and it also calls into question the existing process Maricopa County has to update and refresh voter rolls, linked to such activities as Motor Voter, Obituary Tracking, etc.  Unsurprisingly, insulted attorneys for the state and county are gearing up to sue over this, and various political organizations, ranging from La Raza to the Libertarian Party, also expressed plans to sue Cyber Ninjas on this one.  Only a company from Florida (Dumbest State in the Union, TM) could be so ignorant of Arizona history to think that this was a good idea.  Maybe they will also announce plans to sink some unlicensed ground water wells to really stir up a stink.

Local Republican leaders who pre-date Trump have come out of the woodwork to dump upon the Senate Republicans and Cyber Ninjas from a great height.  Past County Recorders have been unanimous in calling the Cyber Ninjas plan "unworkable" and "pointless" and "ridiculous".  Even past Republican leaders who offered to help out have recoiled after reading the Cyber Ninjas' plan and meeting with them.  Former Secretary of State Ken Bennett jumped out to act as liaison between Senate and Cyber Ninjas, but now he is quoted as saying things like, "I’m going to be giving my input as to whether they’ve thought of all the things they need to think of".

Arizona Democratic Party have called the process a sham, but I think that is a misprint of "shambles".

So as much as this whole process is the butt of jokes like this Daily Show segment, in reality, it is so much sadder and less competent and less in touch with reality.

The fact that Cyber Ninjas have jumbled up the ballot containers, can't keep the doors of the Coliseum locked, are scanning ballots with UV lights, and have to respond to YET ANOTHER court order to disclose their again-changed audit process is just the worst.

So incompetent.  So much failure.  Basic, obvious steps to document their process and follow it don't exist.  And then adding new elements, farcical elements, fantastical elements, like the search for bamboo.  I am going to sprain my neck shaking my head in wonder.

If Mark Twain was to suddenly appear alive today, he couldn't make up such a tale of intellectual bankruptcy, rational deficiency, inadequacy and bungling.  This is worse than The Royal Nonesuch because we as taxpayers are funding it.

[Zorral]

My, aren't we just full of news today --

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/08/cyber-attack-colonial-pipeline/

"Cyber attack forces shutdown of major U.S. pipeline system"

Quote

 

Colonial’s 5,500 miles of pipelines carry fuel from refineries on the Gulf Coast to customers in the southern and eastern United States. The company says it shut down its pipelines temporarily ...

The fuel oil supply up through our/my region has been interrupted due to ransomware attack, again seemingly out of Russia-Eastern Europe -- just they were all part of the Facebook mess with the election 2016.  Don't tell me ever FB isn't evil and shouldn't be just SHUT DOWN.

 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/07/pay-living-wage-or-flip-your-own-damn-burgers-progressives-blast-right-wing

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/05/08/republicans-unemployment-worker-shortage/

And as for the labor supply, 3 states have voted to cut off unemployment to "force people to go back to work" -- for pennies and no health care benefits, job security, job safety, etc. 

No mention that so many of these employees are so used to immigrant labor whom they paid nothing and provided nothing in the first place, and now, they aren't around, yet they still expect to behave to workers the same way they've been allowed to get away with all this time.  Who says forms of slavery still exist is right.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-papers-of-lee-atwater-who-invented-the-scurrilous-tactics-that-trump-normalized

And then ... and then ... and then ... Lee Atwater! The very incarnation of what we all mean by 'hypocrite and liar.'  Which are also the very nicest things that can be said about him, Reagan and all the rest.

 

[Wilbur]

Honestly, I am not sure that anyone in Cyber Ninjas has any experience in actually performing general data center controls reviews.

Cyber Ninjas is now asking the county to provide them with the Maricopa County routers.  They also seem to understand that they might also get and use images of the routers, although their request was written by someone with little or no IT vocabulary, so I am just interpreting their request.

Cyber Ninjas also wants the county to provide them with firmware and admin passwords for the Dominion Voting Systems ballot machines.  Since Maricopa County is a customer of Dominion, and not Dominion itself, Maricopa County doesn't have these passwords to give them, but Cyber Ninja spokespeople are now saying that they cannot perform a complete audit without this level of access, and that the county is not cooperating.

Perhaps Cyber Ninjas is trying to do an end-run around the many, many Dominion lawsuits againsts Trump supporters who have libeled and slandered Dominion.  But this level of sophistication seems out of character with the rest of the Cyber Ninja act, so I am guessing that they just don't understand how SaaS works.

Maricopa County Sheriff Penzone is already firing back about the router request, since access to the routers exposes all kinds of personal, individual, criminal, and other data about Arizona citizens.  I for one am not in a hurry to see the county provide my name, address, social security number, and health information to Cyber Ninjas.

County Supervisors have pointed out that the cost to replace the routers while Cyber Ninjas use them, or to make images for Cyber Ninjas to fool around with, will be around $6 million.  Another good use of tax money.

Republican Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers noted that actually fulfilling the request would cripple the county's operations, and that the request for the routers is a request without a stated control objective, so no one can figure out why the Cyber Ninjas wants them.

Maricopa County County Attorney Adel Allister has now provided several statements directly to Cyber Ninjas, and now also the press, pointing out that the firmware and admin passwords for Dominion vote tabulation machines has to come from Dominion, but the Cyber Ninjas have now made several assertions that the county is somehow at fault for not providing this level of access.  It is as if the Cyber Ninjas had no experience with auditing software on demand / SaaS / cloud computing services, and thus don't know what they are talking about.  Surprise!  Republican Allister also pointed out that the county has provided Cyber Ninjas with every single access authorization that they possess, and that she cannot provide what she does not possess.

Republican Megan Gilbertson pointed out that the auditors the county hired for the first two audits of the 2020 ballots worked "directly with Dominion to access the necessary administrative security permissions to conduct their audits."  For some reason, however, Dominion seems less likely to cooperate with Cyber Ninjas.  Also, Gilbertson noted that the county has already provided the Senate with the batch reports that would allow Cyber Ninjas to do the same comparo with their hand counts.  Cyber Ninjas did not seem to be eager to perform, or perhaps not know how to perform, this validation technique, she snarked.

In return the Senate is threatening to compel, by yet another subpoena, the County Board of Supervisors, four out of five of which are Republicans, to testify to the Senate.  Sellers has basically shrugged, noted that the first two audits were A.) well-organized and well-planned and B.) showed no problems with the election results or the election process, and said he and the other supervisors would just explain the same things they have already said to the Senate once more.

This whole experience is basically forming a group of Leftover Republicans in these fundamental, unglamorous government positions and Democrats in state and county roles here in Arizona who are unified in their loathing for the incompetence and arrogance of the Trumpkins.  Do this long enough, and we will get a Purple group of Rs and Ds who are willing to govern and work together who have gained enough exposure to run for the State Senate and displace the Trump Republicans, who are just making asses of themselves in public.

Yet the Herp-a-derp Train rolls on!

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2021/05/08/maricopa-co-sheriff-says-arizona-election-audit-risks-law-enforcement/5004443001/

[Gorn]

I'm sorry, I simply cannot take seriously any actions of a real-world organization of adults who call themselves "cyber ninjas".

[DanteGabriel]

49 minutes ago, Gorn said:

I'm sorry, I simply cannot take seriously any actions of a real-world organization of adults who call themselves "cyber ninjas".

It does smack of the sort of name an out of touch pillock would think is a cool and intimidating security company name.

[Gorn]

I mean, if someone proposed that name in the writing room of Cyberpunk 2077 or The Matrix, they'd be laughed out of the room.

Matrix sequels, on the other hand...