Bear Pit: now the sole domicile of politics at LuLa

[TechTalk]

First-time weekly unemployment figures unexpectedly go up again to over 700K.

The COVID infection rate has also started rising again recently, raising concerns about the rise of variants and relaxing efforts to mitigate the spread too soon. Companies are not immune to the same concerns.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/28/61,821 new Covid-19 cases per day -12% increase compared with a week ago

Following nearly three months of declines, U.S. coronavirus cases are beginning to rebound once again. The country is reporting a weekly average of 61,821 new Covid-19 cases per day, a 12% increase compared with a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

[Robert Roaldi]

Came across this 30 min podcast about Bellingcat, an organization that uses open-source journalism to research/investigate/debunk items in the news, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/972837924/how-bellingcats-online-sleuths-solve-global-crimes-using-open-source-info. It's a fascinating process.

[Robert Roaldi]

There's no rule regarding on-line campaigning that I'm aware of in Georgia or anywhere else.  In any case, how would you enforce electioneering or campaigning on twitter within 100 feet or in the building where the voting goes on?  They would have to take people's cellphones away, an unlikely situation and something that is not in the law or done at all.

However, on the other hand, stopping actual people from electioneering right before people vote is an important rule.  In NYC, when I voted at my nearby Junior High School, the election officials place signs within 100 feet of the building.  A cop was stationed outside to maintain the rule and order. Politicians and their supporters would stand past the 100-foot line and pass out campaign literature and shake hands.  But the cop would stop anyone from doing that within 100 feet. 

If politicians wanted to hand out water and sandwiches beyond 100 feet, I suppose they could do that.  But I never saw that happen in 60 years of voting.  Allowing that to happen within 100 feet or in the building where people voted, would only encourage enticement, persuasion, and intimidation of voters.  The law tries to prevent that, a rational and reasonable rule.  The argument that people are going to die on the line from thirst is just a BS argument to allow electioneering.

I just googled it again and found a similar rule in Texas.  It doesn't mention water or food.  But Georgia obviously wanted to make it clear that's not allowed either because people will claim they're not electioneering when they pass out water when they actually are electioneering.

Electioneering
Each early voting and election day polling place must be organized with 100-foot distance markers posted at surrounding outside entries to the building.  During the voting period and inside this protected area, it is prohibited to electioneer, including expressing preference for or against any candidate, measure, or political party. A violation of this provision in the Election Code is a Class C misdemeanor. Tex. Elec. Code §§ 61.003, 85.036.

Please note that the early voting clerk and the presiding judge of each polling place, as appropriate, have the authority of a district judge while serving in that capacity. This authority enables the early voting clerk or the presiding judge, as appropriate, to use his or her discretion to ensure the safety and efficiency of the early voting and election day polling place and the surrounding 100-foot area. Tex. Elec. Code §§ 32.075(e), 81.002.

While an election judge or early voting clerk has the authority to ensure that electioneering is not occurring within the 100 foot marker, Section 32.075(e) of the Code specifically states that a presiding judge may not enforce electioneering provisions outside of the 100-foot distance markers. The same prohibition applies to an early voting clerk, per Section 81.002 of the Code.

If you or your presiding judges have questions as to what constitutes electioneering, encourage them to contact either your office or our office directly with specific questions.

Regulating Electioneering Outside 100-Foot Marker
An entity that owns or controls a public building being used as a polling place may not prohibit electioneering outside of the 100-foot distance marker. However, the entity may enact reasonable regulations in regards to the time, place, and manner of electioneering. Tex. Elec. Code § 61.003(a-1).

Only a court of law can determine what is reasonable in terms of time, place and manner. However, an example of a reasonable regulation may include prohibiting electioneering on sidewalks or driveways to keep them clear for pedestrians and traffic.

Finally, we recommend that all regulations be content neutral. If you have questions, we suggest that you contact your attorney.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/advisory2018-11.shtml

I guess what I'm saying is, if it isn't obvious, is that if social media can invade a person's thoughts while they wait in line to vote, and if there are no embargoes on the media in general, then what damn difference does it make if someone hands a voter a bottle of water? I suggest you find a battle worth fighting.

And like I've said before, your country has a long history of gerrymandering and voter suppression that is well documented. Your time might be better spent worrying about that.

But I didn't mean to get involved in this nonsense. I have little interest in how US elections are run, what little I know from these forums makes me think it needs a huge overhaul to bring their procedures up to date. But that's not going to happen, I suspect.

[Alan Klein]

I guess what I'm saying is, if it isn't obvious, is that if social media can invade a person's thoughts while they wait in line to vote, and if there are no embargoes on the media in general, then what damn difference does it make if someone hands a voter a bottle of water? I suggest you find a battle worth fighting.

And like I've said before, your country has a long history of gerrymandering and voter suppression that is well documented. Your time might be better spent worrying about that.

But I didn't mean to get involved in this nonsense. I have little interest in how US elections are run, what little I know from these forums makes me think it needs a huge overhaul to bring their procedures up to date. But that's not going to happen, I suspect.

Media can't grab your attention like a live person. It doesn't know when you're standing in line and there's not much we can do with it anyway.

However, if I'm in line to vote before I step into the voting booth and someone hands me a bottle of water and comments, "Courtesy of Bob Roaldi who's listed in the second column.", or "Don't forget to press YES for Proposition #3 Higher Pay for Teachers".  I'm likely to select you as my next congressman and give teachers a raise.  That's electioneering.

Can you imagine if we had each group handing out bottles of water and sandwiches and fighting with each other to get to speak to the voters in line?    That's what the rule is trying to prevent.  It has nothing to do with the underclass, poor people, minorities, etc or preventing hunger and thirst.  That's just the excuses they're giving against the rule.

[James Clark]

Can you imagine if we had each group handing out bottles of water and sandwiches and fighting with each other to get to speak to the voters in line?    That's what the rule is trying to prevent.  It has nothing to do with the underclass, poor people, minorities, etc or preventing hunger and thirst.  That's just the excuses they're giving against the rule.

I have to imagine it because it’s not happening now.  So I guess we need a law against it that just happens to make it more irritating for democrats to vote.

And it’s just excuses for something??  Lol. Irony is dead.

[Alan Klein]

I have to imagine it because it’s not happening now.  So I guess we need a law against it that just happens to make it more irritating for democrats to vote.

And it’s just excuses for something??  Lol. Irony is dead.

But electioneering is happening now.  That's why states require no electioneering within 100 feet of the building or none inside at all.  Maybe Georgia started to have this problem with groups using handing out water as an excuse to electioneer as I showed examples in my last post.  So they added it to their rules.    Nothing's stopping them from handing out water and food beyond 100 feet.  Seems reasonable to me.

[pschefz]

The COVID infection rate has also started rising again recently, raising concerns about the rise of variants and relaxing efforts to mitigate the spread too soon. Companies are not immune to the same concerns.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/28/61,821 new Covid-19 cases per day -12% increase compared with a week ago

Following nearly three months of declines, U.S. coronavirus cases are beginning to rebound once again. The country is reporting a weekly average of 61,821 new Covid-19 cases per day, a 12% increase compared with a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

considering that there is very little actual testing done, this is much more concerning then the numbers show

[TechTalk]

Remember John Boehner?...The Republican that was Speaker of the House from 2011 thru 2015? That seems so long ago. He has an interesting essay in Politico today.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/02/john-boehner-book-memoir-excerpt

Panic Rooms, Birth Certificates and the Birth of GOP Paranoia

How America’s center-right party started to lose its mind, as told by the man who tried to keep it sane.

Below are the first few paragraphs...

In the 2010 midterm election, voters from all over the place gave President Obama what he himself called “a shellacking.” And oh boy, was it ever. You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name—and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.

Retaking control of the House of Representatives put me in line to be the next Speaker of the House over the largest freshman Republican class in history: 87 newly elected members of the GOP. Since I was presiding over a large group of people who’d never sat in Congress, I felt I owed them a little tutorial on governing. I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didn’t have brains that got in the way. Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasn’t their thing. A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. That’s why they thought they were elected.

Some of them, well, you could tell they weren’t paying attention because they were just thinking of how to fundraise off of outrage or how they could get on Hannity that night. Ronald Reagan used to say something to the effect that if I get 80 or 90 percent of what I want, that’s a win. These guys wanted 100 percent every time. In fact, I don’t think that would satisfy them, because they didn’t really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.

More at link above

[Alan Klein]

Remember John Boehner?...The Republican that was Speaker of the House from 2011 thru 2015? That seems so long ago. He has an interesting essay in Politico today.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/02/john-boehner-book-memoir-excerpt

Panic Rooms, Birth Certificates and the Birth of GOP Paranoia

How America’s center-right party started to lose its mind, as told by the man who tried to keep it sane.

Below are the first few paragraphs...

In the 2010 midterm election, voters from all over the place gave President Obama what he himself called “a shellacking.” And oh boy, was it ever. You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name—and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.

Retaking control of the House of Representatives put me in line to be the next Speaker of the House over the largest freshman Republican class in history: 87 newly elected members of the GOP. Since I was presiding over a large group of people who’d never sat in Congress, I felt I owed them a little tutorial on governing. I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didn’t have brains that got in the way. Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasn’t their thing. A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. That’s why they thought they were elected.

Some of them, well, you could tell they weren’t paying attention because they were just thinking of how to fundraise off of outrage or how they could get on Hannity that night. Ronald Reagan used to say something to the effect that if I get 80 or 90 percent of what I want, that’s a win. These guys wanted 100 percent every time. In fact, I don’t think that would satisfy them, because they didn’t really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.

More at link above

Both parties are like that today.  Neither side wants to compromise.  They'll be even less chance of that happening if they get rid of filibustering.

[Robert Roaldi]

... Can you imagine if we had each group handing out bottles of water and sandwiches and fighting with each other to get to speak to the voters in line?   ...

What difference would it make? Who cares.

[John Camp]

Remember John Boehner?...The Republican that was Speaker of the House from 2011 thru 2015? That seems so long ago. He has an interesting essay in Politico today.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/02/john-boehner-book-memoir-excerpt

Panic Rooms, Birth Certificates and the Birth of GOP Paranoia

How America’s center-right party started to lose its mind, as told by the man who tried to keep it sane.


Below are the first few paragraphs...

In the 2010 midterm election, voters from all over the place gave President Obama what he himself called “a shellacking.” And oh boy, was it ever. You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name—and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.

Retaking control of the House of Representatives put me in line to be the next Speaker of the House over the largest freshman Republican class in history: 87 newly elected members of the GOP. Since I was presiding over a large group of people who’d never sat in Congress, I felt I owed them a little tutorial on governing. I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didn’t have brains that got in the way. Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasn’t their thing. A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. That’s why they thought they were elected.

Some of them, well, you could tell they weren’t paying attention because they were just thinking of how to fundraise off of outrage or how they could get on Hannity that night. Ronald Reagan used to say something to the effect that if I get 80 or 90 percent of what I want, that’s a win. These guys wanted 100 percent every time. In fact, I don’t think that would satisfy them, because they didn’t really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.

More at link above

My wife and I were both longtime newspaper reporters. I think the corruption of the media (especially Fox, but you see it in other national media as well) is possibly the major political story of the first part of the 21st century. But the media won't take outside criticism -- they start whining about protecting the First Amendment, just as the gun people whine about the Second. Nobody wants the media to stop reporting, we just want them to focus on news and factual information rather than on opinion. Opinions, we can create on our own, but facts can be hard to come by.

[Alan Klein]

My wife and I were both longtime newspaper reporters. I think the corruption of the media (especially Fox, but you see it in other national media as well) is possibly the major political story of the first part of the 21st century. But the media won't take outside criticism -- they start whining about protecting the First Amendment, just as the gun people whine about the Second. Nobody wants the media to stop reporting, we just want them to focus on news and factual information rather than on opinion. Opinions, we can create on our own, but facts can be hard to come by.

Opinion cable shows are not journalism.   CNN (Blitzer)  MSNBC (Maddow) and the opinion program of Fox (Hannity) fall in this group although some try to make it seem they're journalism. Fox also has a more journalistic group of news shows that are more balanced. 

But it's the media like the NY Times and Washington Post, and the broadcast stations like CBS NBC and ABC that are biased while presenting themselves as fair and balanced that bothers me the most.  They have huge influence on politics nationally and in the world but have an agenda that shows in their reporting.  It's why people don't believe them any longer. They all need to go back to Journalism 101 and repeat the course.

[Peter McLennan]

But it's the media like the NY Times and Washington Post, and the broadcast stations like CBS NBC and ABC that are biased while presenting themselves as fair and balanced that bothers me the most.

The irony here is so delicious I've nearly lost my appetite.

[Alan Klein]

The irony here is so delicious I've nearly lost my appetite.

Sorry if I ruined your lunch.  I'm going to eat mine now.

[jeremyrh]

But it's the media like the NY Times and Washington Post, and the broadcast stations like CBS NBC and ABC that are biased while presenting themselves as fair and balanced that bothers me the most.  They have huge influence on politics nationally and in the world but have an agenda that shows in their reporting.  It's why people don't believe them any longer. They all need to go back to Journalism 101 and repeat the course.

And what course are you going to retake to remind you not to tell lies?

[Alan Klein]

And what course are you going to retake to remind you not to tell lies?

Which of the two avatars you've posted are the lie, or are both lies?

[jeremyrh]

Which of the two avatars you've posted are the lie, or are both lies?

Neither. But that has nothing to do with the fact that you are a liar.

[sf]

Neither. But that has nothing to do with the fact that you are a liar.

Neither is a picture of you, though, is it? The current one is obviously not but the previous one was deceptive. A lie? Maybe.

S

[jeremyrh]

Neither is a picture of you, though, is it? The current one is obviously not but the previous one was deceptive. A lie? Maybe.

S

Thanks for another enthralling contribution, "S". I wonder if it is asking too much for you to get an actual clue what you're talking about before you favour us again with your wisdom. In the meantime, maybe check on the meaning of "avatar".

[Blas]

Jeremy,

one of those pic's is a lie,

I know the you know the we know its a lie.

Oh baby, ohhh!