Tuco

My bigger concern is that every site that posts anything controversial is going to be shutdown. I'm not normally a big fan of liability protections, but I could certainly see Devon Nunes filing lawsuits every time someone pretends to be his cow. Maybe Twitter and Facebook are big enough to push back on that, but would Surly?

This is pretty much where I am. I do believe there needs to be more tools to combat disinformation, but I don't this is a great one. It seems to be taking a sledge hammer where a scalpel is needed. For one thing, there are plenty of media outlets that are not protected, but still are able to push disinformation - think OAN, FoxBusiness, Newsmax. All they do is work around the current slander/libel laws. FoxNews reporting on Seth Rich is a great example. They were caught red-handed fabricating absolute bullshit about Seth Rich to support a host of conspiracy theories, Rich's family sues, but since Seth was dead, there was no injured party in the case. FoxNews, or anyone else, can push whatever lies they want as long as long as there is no financial impact on someone with standing. It's not criminal, and there is no one to bring a civil case. How do we change that? If you don't change that, it seems fairly easy for on-line sources to work the same tricks. Reversing 230 might address 50% of the current disinformation campaigns, but those bullshit producers will change the form of their lies, but not the function.

Is there anything that Brisket saying that you think is out of the realm of possibility for us damned dirty apes? Maybe I misunderstood your point.

Yeah, but within 10 years "Bloody Mary" was roasting Protestants. I don't think humanity is going to get snuffed out in the couple of years. But, referencing history to brush off any fears of wide scale bloodshed seems a little silly. The "world" survived; several of its inhabitants didn't. I thought we were past that shit, but I also thought we were past plagues.

One of the worst things about the current political culture is that it very much resembles sports fan culture. Right and wrong don't matter, just winning. There is no allegiance to any political philosophy, just teams. It's great for sports, but horrible for governance. But, the good thing here, is that these Trump sports fans just lost the big game they were certain they were going to win. We've all been there. We've all seen how the fan base can strike out at everybody and everything that they could possibly blame for an unpleasant reality. That includes their fellow fans who might have a different view on what the reality is. I look forward to some ugliness in the Trump fanbase. Somewhat related, I read "The Origin of Satan" many years ago. It dealt with how the idea of Satan originated and evolved in Judeo-Christian mythology. The pertinent aspect was that early Christian writers were much more likely to call their fellow Christians (or Jews) "Satan" than outsiders like the Romans, or other pagans, or, as time went on, traditional Jews. For purists, people who are 95% on your side are more "evil" than people who are not on your side at all.

Burn, baby, burn.

That sucks. As I've told my daughter, my wish is that I live long and die quickly. Unfortunately this disease can take both those away.

Do you feel like sharing the details? My condolences, either way.

Since this began, we should have been doing targeted messaging and outreach to black and Latino communities, as well as widespread messaging for everyone. The lack of federal propaganda* on COVID is one of the most egregious failures of the administration. Most people don't watch the news. Most people don't read the news. Messaging by hospitals and private individuals have been competing with the sea of misinformation on social media, and merely competing isn't sufficient. *propaganda, marketing, public service announcement - whatever you want to call it

Yeah, that's been our point all along.

I don't think it's necessarily stupid, just lazy as fuck. Show your work. The actions of the President and his band of shitheels have been well-documented, and even admitted to in many cases. So, who specifically, what specifically, do you think is Biden's counterexample? His kid getting a job based on his last name? Ok, that would maybe be a counterpoint to say, Ivanka hawking her shit to the public. But that's really not near the top of Trump fuckery. What else? Whatcha got? Because I think all you have is the vague echoing din of decades of right wing political radio. You can't really place it, but you are sure you heard something about something. And that's enough to lower the bar. It's lazy as fuck. If you are going to give up on holding politicians to any kind of standard, do your fucking homework first.

I'm thinking more General Disarray, loyal side kick to Professor Chaos.

But his wife buys a lot of double A batteries.

Turn your camera off, Jeffrey.

It'd be like a team being behind by 2 touchdowns in the 4th quarter, demanding an instant reply on some inconsequential play, and then having the refs convene for a few minutes, returning a decision to take 3 seconds off the clock because the game clock didn't start on the snap. It was quite the victory.

I know I was responsible for the precinct I worked being at least one provisional ballot out of ballot. Keep in mind, this was my "first day on the job" as it was for most workers. A woman came, wasn't in the book. Her English wasn't great, but she was asked if she had been sent here by the election commission to vote a provisional ballot. She said yes. I entered her name in the book. Then, when she was talking the inspector (who actually knew what she was doing) to go through the provisional ballot process, it appeared that she hadn't talked to the board, so she was going to call them and find out where to go. I didn't think to cross out the name, as I was busy processing other voters. So, it is likely appeared that she voted provisionally, but the ballot disappeared. By the time we were doing the midday count, there was disconnect between the signatures and the number of provisional ballots, but I had no recollection what her name was and wasn't going to risk removing someone's name from the book who had legally voted. I'm betting shit like this happens all the time. In fact, in the training, when they talked about midday counts, they explicitly said don't worry if the counts are off by a few, but to sound the alarm if it's off by a bunch.

I could see that. And if that means I don't have to serve on a jury, thats cool too.

I'm going to guess 3-0-with one abstain. The Trumpster hold out was looking to delay certification by adjourning. That's not going to happen, so he will be forced into an up/down vote on the issue. With the potential legal implications of voting no, I think he avoids it all together. He should still be removed from the board for any future election.

Really? Is that a stereotype? It must be because chicks really dig engineers. I've always heard it "How do you know an engineer is an extrovert? He looks at your shoes when he is talking."

It seems like the strategy is to bore the Trumpsters to disinterest. Probably not a bad plan.

Interesting. As an engineer, I am fairly comfortable telling a client that they can't do something they want to do. Looking back at his statements, it pretty much follows that script. "Yeah, I wish we could do that, too, but the code won't allow it (and I want to keep my license.)"

In the election process, I think there a several, straight forward, clerical tasks that require balanced parties to do it. In Nebraska, on election day, you have someone from one party check the name in the voter roll book, and then someone from the other party write in the name in the second book. If an R gives the voter the ballot, the D collects it and puts it in the box. Every task has an R and D executing it. There is no real decision making.

I put it in the "every accusation is a confession category." Republican hacks like Cruz can't imagine Democrats putting this much attention into a issue unless it's for political gain. For the Republicans, the Benghazi hearings were never about understanding what went wrong to avoid similar mistakes in the future. It was about torpedoing a political rival. That's it. That was the only purpose for the time and energy Congress spent on it. That is how they view the focus on COVID. If your only purpose is gaining a political advantage, it's hard to understand that there is something else at play.

Unfortunately it may take getting to the Michigan Supreme Court to get the "law and order" party to follow the law. I hope it doesn't. I hope the second GOP member of the board isn't a fucking cultist and has the balls to stand up to the cultists. But that's a tough bet right now.

It's probably already been said, but there is always a Tweet when it comes to Trump and his incompetence. Something you can always count on. Death, taxes and a stupid ass tweet coming back to bite Trump in the ass. So, 60% of his election dream team had been employed by Ukrainian oligarch/fugitive Dmytro Firtash, lobbying Trump in an affair which would eventually lead to Trump's impeachment. And now it's 75% of the team with the departure of QAnon nutball Powell. I think Giuliani, diGenova and Toensing are looking at FARA violations, at a minimum, once Biden is sworn in.