Why is it okay for adults to brag about having voted?

by philg

Voting is supposed to be simple enough for roughly 130 million Americans to do. Yet my Facebook feed is packed with people bragging about having accomplished this act, almost always in non-swing states in which their votes are surely irrelevant. It seems like something that preschoolers would be celebrated for, i.e., accomplishing a task that is straightforward for most adults. (See also Are women the new children?)

Examples:

We voted! Less than an hour in line on a rainy afternoon in NYC – first time for [son] who turned 18 in August! #proudpapa #voteNYC #ByeDon

I voted! My blood pressure went through the roof when seeing all these senior women congregated at the Republican booth! How can any respectable woman or anyone with an iota of moral standing vote for this criminal is beyond me

i VOTED !!! My ballot is now in the drop box at City Hall! [From guy who changed his profile to a Biden-Harris seal of some sort]

Fantastic job! [response to the above]

It was such a stress relief, I took a nap afterwards! [additional response to the above from one of his friends, another purported “man”]

I voted today! Had to show ID. Not a problem. My favorite presidential votes were for my wonderful friend and mentor Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000.

Should I brag every time that we are able to finish something that was purchased at Costco, a far greater challenge than voting? “We used the last dishwasher pac!” or “We ate the last orange from the box!” or “Mindy the Crippler finished her last green dental chew!”

Maybe you’ll say that the voting braggarts are engaged in a sophisticated program to encourage others to vote (for Democrats!). If so, why didn’t they do that in the offline pre-Facebook world? I don’t remember anyone coming into work and shouting out, to the slaves within the cubicles of the coding plantation, “I voted!”

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Who is the Big Money candidate this year?

by philg

Hillary was the candidate of Big Money in 2016: “Trump won with half as much money as Clinton raised” (Politico). Trump and “allies” raised only $600 million versus more than $1.2 billion for the wife of the former President (just like in Latin America!).

What’s the story in 2020? And, if Biden does not similarly dominate the fundraising and spending process, to what do we attribute the difference?

“The Two Americas Financing the Trump and Biden Campaigns” (NYT, October 25) includes a map:

Joe Biden has outraised President Trump on the strength of some of the wealthiest and most educated ZIP codes in the United States, running up the fund-raising score in cities and suburbs so resoundingly that he collected more money than Mr. Trump on all but two days in the last two months … It is not just that much of Mr. Biden’s strongest support comes overwhelmingly from the two coasts, which it does. … In ZIP codes with a median household income of at least $100,000, Mr. Biden smashed Mr. Trump in fund-raising, $486 million to only $167 million — accounting for almost his entire financial edge. … Over all, Mr. Biden raised $1.07 billion and Mr. Trump $734 million over the last six months in the 32,000 populated ZIP codes, the analysis shows.

I’ve seen some of this in Maine. In the smaller towns and rural areas, it is rare to see a Biden-Harris sign. Portland, on the other hand, is all rainbow flags, BLM, Biden-Harris, etc. Portland and its suburbs/exurbs contain close to half of the total population in Maine, so the elite high-income city-dwellers need only a handful of votes for Democrats from elsewhere in order to impose their will on the small towners.

Even if the NYT is correct that Biden is getting more money and most of it is coming from rich Americans, we’re still left with the question of why. Is it economic self-interest? If so, based on what? A belief that a bigger government will help lawyers, accountants, doctors, and others with credentials? A belief that expanded low-skill immigration will help elites (see below)? A superior moral compass among the rich? (Hunter Biden getting paid by the Ukrainian oil company while his dad was VP (Senate committee report) was okay, but Trump hotels getting paid by various folks with an interest in government policy while Trump is President is not okay) Something else?

Is it reasonable to infer that if the coastal elites are funding Biden and working class Americans are funding Trump that we can expect the coastal elites to soak up more of the good stuff in the American economy/society after Biden-Harris prevail?

Related:

  • “Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers” (Politico), a Harvard economics analysis of how low-skill immigration (promoted by Biden) enriches the educated elites with roughly $500 billion per year, nearly all of it on the backs of working class Americans, who receive lower wages (and also pay higher rents and incur other costs from the extra population, but I don’t think the Harvard eggheads factored that in)
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Elite coastal Jews advocate discrimination against white and Asian males

by philg

Let’s look again at White men correctly perceive American Jews as their enemies? Here’s the latest from our Jewish-owned media elite… “Californians, Vote Yes on Prop 16” (New York Times, October 27):

Black and Latino people have been hit hardest by America’s recent one-two punch of public health and economic crises. They’ve been hospitalized for Covid-19 at quadruple the rate of white Americans. Their businesses have struggled to get the support they requested from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program. As of August, the unemployment rate for African-Americans was nearly double that of white Americans.

Amid these widening disparities, California voters are weighing a measure that could be a big help to women, Black and Latino students and business owners. Proposition 16 aims to reverse Proposition 209, a measure that California passed 24 years ago banning consideration of race, gender or ethnicity in public university admissions and public contracting. California was the first state to try to ban affirmative action, and others — including Michigan, Arizona and Washington — later followed suit.

Given that slots at public universities and funding for business owners are fixed and limited quantities, when Women, Blacks, and Latinos (but not the Latinx?) are advanced, necessarily, it is back of the bus for those unwise enough to identify as “white man” or “Asian man.”

Who else loves discrimination against white and Asian males, according to the NYT?

Proposition 16 has its supporters: the governor, Senator Kamala Harris, top public university officials.

So… a Jewish-owned newspaper reaches out from thousands of mile away to advocate for government-organized discrimination against white males and we will simultaneously say that white males who oppose Jewish-Americans are filled with irrational hatred? (We will also declare that white males who vote against the presidency of Kamala Harris are “voting against their own interest”!)

Related:

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Post-election Deplorable hunt enabled by mail-in voting?

by philg

I finally dug my way through the two ballot questions (see Should I vote for ranked-choice voting?) and am ready to vote here in Maskachusetts. The instructions that came with my mail-in ballot:

Put your ballot into the yellow ballot envelope and seal the ballot envelope.

Sign the ballot envelope. Print your name and address below your signature.

The ballot envelope also has a personalized name/address sticker on it.

When a person votes in-person in Maskachusetts (generally for a candidate running unopposed or one whose odds of winning are 99.99%), he/she/ze/they fills out a ballot in a private booth and then puts the ballot into a scanner. There is no association between ballot and person.

With vote-by-mail, local officials, nearly all of whom are from one party(!), could assemble a list of citizens (and the undocumented?) who failed to vote correctly. After the election, God willing, this could be the basis for correcting the big error that my Dutch friend said the American elites made in 2016 regarding the Deplorables: “They forgot to take away their right to vote.”

I haven’t seen this discussed much, but as far as I can tell, vote-by-mail means the end of anonymous voting in Massachusetts (not sure how it is done in the rest of the country).

Separately, the towns here have spent what is probably $10,000+ each on voting drop boxes on concrete pads:

People who don’t trust the government-run post office to deliver a local letter within 2-3 weeks can use this box to vote for a bigger government that will take over additional day-to-day functions within society and the economy. People who agree with Joe Biden that climate change is an existential threat to humanity can, instead of walking to the end of their own driveway and putting the flag up on their own mailbox, drive a CO2-spewing vehicle to/from the ballot drop box. They will, of course, vote for bold government action to cut CO2 emissions!

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The CDC and our state public health department tell us how to trick or treat

by philg

From mass.gov, “Halloween During COVID-19” (“Consistent with the Halloween activity guidance released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”). First some Dos:

  • A costume mask is not a substitute for a face mask or face covering. To protect yourself and others, ensure you are wearing a protective face mask or covering instead of or in addition to a costume mask. [A bandana is legal and effective PPE against coronavirus, but a Batman mask is not?]
  • Hold virtual costume contests or pumpkin carving events.

Now the Don’ts:

  • Attending crowded costume parties held indoors, or any gatherings that exceed indoor or outdoor gathering limits;
  • Going to an indoor haunted house where people may be crowded together and screaming; and
  • Going on hayrides or tractor rides with people who are not in your household.

Related:

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Heated eyeglasses for Age of Faith (in masks)?

by philg

We in the American Church of Shutdown put our faith in masks, for they shall preserve us from the coronaplague, even as they have preserved those in Peru, Spain, France, and other countries with strict mask laws and high compliance rates.

In New England, however, now that the weather is cold, mask+eyeglasses = fog.

What about this idea: heated eyeglasses to prevent fogging. Bose managed to get some batteries into ordinary-looking eyeglasses (“Frames”). Is it hopeless to imagine that sufficient battery power could be mustered to heat the lenses for as much time as people spend outdoors in the fall, winter, and early spring?

Separately, now that #Science tells us that coronaplague is spread via aerosols, will people who directly experience eyeglass fogging begin to develop heretical beliefs that masking the general population might be ineffective against the spread of Covid-19?

Related:

  • battery-powered face mask (to reduce breathing effort) from LG with 8-hour battery life
  • U.S. Patent 5,319,397, “Defogging eyeglasses”: Eyeglasses worn in winter weather conditions are subject to fogging due to condensation of water vapor. A method of removing condensation from eyeglasses is provided. The method involves heating the lenses of the eyeglasses, by making the lenses a part of an electrical circuit. Electric current is supplied to the electric circuit from a power source external to the eyeglasses. The size and weight of the power source may be minimized by utilizing a timer or a power regulator. A smaller power source is also made possible by selectively heating the lenses, applying more power in the area of the lenses most likely to experience fogging. (this guy stole my idea, it seems, with this filed-in-1992 patent, and there is a massive battery dongle)
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Free to identify as Albanian American or a Girl Who Codes at GWU

by philg

From my beloved alma mater, George Washington University, “Student groups required to update bylaws to meet GW inclusion policy” (The GW Hatchet):

More than 20 student organizations were found to have violated GW’s gender, race and religion nondiscrimination policy, according to an email officials sent to those organizations last month.

“The University does allow organizations to choose between open and selective criteria for membership – however, selective criteria for general membership into the organization must abide by University policy, including its nondiscrimination policies,” the email states.

Graham said officials contacted 23 student organizations like Girls Who Code College Loop, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Albanian American Student Association.

“Queens Movement is focused on women’s empowerment – how can we be more open and inclusive within our organization if our organization is meant to support women?” Morrisey said in an email.

“Despite these concerns, we remain committed to remaining a safe and empowering place for all of our sisters, regardless of their gender identity, and are confident that these new measures will not infringe upon our ability to do so,” Ades said.

“Title IX tried to protect students from discrimination, and sometimes the best way to do that is to create a space specifically for minority voices,” Mobarhan said in an email. “Orgs like DPE sorority, Women in Finance, GW Women of Color, Women in Computer Science and so much more are necessary for equal opportunity.”

So much great stuff here! GWU is 62 percent female (US News), but those who identify as “women” are examples of a “minority”. It is possible to be a “sister” even if one identifies as a “man”, for example. One will soon be able to identify as a “girl who codes” without identifying as a “girl”. Most confusing: How exactly does a person identify as an Albanian American?

(Readers who thought that I was merely an MIT nerd: I attended GWU as a 14-year-old growing up in Washington, D.C, then transferred to MIT as a 15-year-old sophomore. In other words, I transferred from a school that is now 62 percent female to one that was 17 percent female and called myself intelligent. Also fun: during my attendance there, a dispute arose among the trustees regarding how to make the school more “selective”. One trustee was quoted as responding, “There is a place for a mediocre university in this country and GW is it”. I personally had a great experience there. The professors were passionate about teaching and weren’t consumed with their labs, postdocs, graduate students, etc.)

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How is the Amy Coney Barrett vote going?

by philg

One of my Facebook friends is featured in this image from the Maskachusetts State House (source of more than 50 governor’s orders this year):

My favorite part of this is the Statue of Liberty wearing a mask while holding a sign that reads “yearning to breathe free”.

These handmaids remind me to ask… What’s happening with the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation?

(Separately, the image contains RBG’s dying wish: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” Does that wish, following an 87-year life, remind anyone of (the awesome) Sandra Bullock’s response to “What is the one most important thing our society needs?” in Miss Congeniality? “That would be… harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.”)

Related:

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What were Jeffrey Toobin and New Yorker friends doing on their Zoom call?

by philg

The righteous Trump-haters at New Yorker magazine have been in the news lately, but not for their four years of anti-Trump journalism. The story that has excited public interest is mostly about Jeffrey Toobin’s unscripted appearance on camera. What I’m more curious about is the original purpose of the call. From the same VICE article:

Two people who were on the call told VICE separately that the call was an election simulation featuring many of the New Yorker’s biggest stars: Jane Mayer was playing establishment Republicans; Evan Osnos was Joe Biden, Jelani Cobb was establishment Democrats, Masha Gessen played Donald Trump, Andrew Marantz was the far right, Sue Halpern was left wing democrats, Dexter Filkins was the military, and Jeffrey Toobin playing the courts. There were also a handful of other producers on the call from the New Yorker and WNYC.

How was this supposed to be productive? A bunch of Democrats get together and half of them pretend to be Republicans for an hour or two? If you’re a journalist, what is the point of this? Why not simply wait for stuff to happen and then report on it?

(See also “Who is Casey Greenfield and when did she have a child with Jeffrey Toobin?” (The Sun, regarding a Yale Law School graduate who discovered that the real gold was in “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage”); see also a NYT story about this successful plaintiff.)

Let me sample the at-least-daily New Yorker emails that I get. I deleted a bunch of these, but Gmail says that there are 1,394 left that contain the word “Trump”!

From October 23, 2020:

From January 25, 2020, a Letter from Trump’s Washington (he owns the whole city now, not just the lease on one hotel!)…

Immigrants were our last best hope on November 24, 2019:

If only there were some way to replace or dilute the natives with these wonderful people! In the meantime, Trump was going to impeach himself on October 4, 2019:

(Little did Hunter Biden realize at the time that his most formidable enemy was the stripper with whom he’d had sex.)

May 26, 2019:

April 19, 2019:

January 18, 2019:

It was the Russians on October 8, 2018:

Trump mocks a terrified-to-fly survivor on October 3, 2018:

Admittedly, he wasn’t nearly as harsh on Christine Blasey Ford as this Canadian literature professor:

This is a professional career woman? With that little-girl croaky voice and poor-me face and the trembly “I’m going to cry at any moment” narration supposedly because of the trauma of reading out a prepared script about something discussed in therapy and rehearsed dozens, if not hundreds, of times with a legal team and other advisors. A trauma that required putting two doors on a big costly house. Yes, this is the elite professional woman that feminism has created after 50 years of nonstop grievance-mongering.

It was the Russians on July 20, 2018:

On May 1, 2018, we were running short of low-skill Syrians:

Trump was hated by “most of the population” on January 30, 2018:

It was the Russians on September 22, 2017:

On August 18, 2017, shortly before Congress cooperated with Trump to pass the most substantial changes to the U.S. tax code in 20 years(?):

It was the Russians on February 15, 2017:

On February 4, 2017, the magazine was concerned that Americans would stop thinking about “race-related history” and all things LGBTQIA+:

December 29, 2015:

New York was anti-fascist long before it was fashionable!

The passionate curiosity regarding Donald Trump’s net worth goes back at least to July 29, 2015:

Trump won’t win, but he will get in some peoples’ heads… Also, the Greeks need some more of that sweet German cash! July 8, 2015:

Related:

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Do lobbyists support Biden-Harris or Trump-Pence?

by philg

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I drove through Bethesda, Maryland on my way back to the airport. In the neighborhoods where successful government workers might live, Biden-Harris, BLM, and rainbow signs were common. Example:

Within the yards of those who draw a paycheck from the Federal government, not a single Trump sign could be found (but maybe the virtuous removed them?).

How about the lobbyists? I drove through a neighborhood of $2-4 million homes (not quite as nice as the Bethesda house of the climate change alarmist Thomas Friedman). Not a single political sign. It seems as though the Washington elite feels that things will be okay for them regardless of who prevails!

What’s the yard sign situation here in the Boston area? From a public sign forest in the center of Lincoln, Maskachusetts:

Note that one wag had decided to taunt the righteous with a Trump 2020 sign. This was at least the second iteration of the taunt, the first sign that I saw having been removed within 24 hours. By October 18, the Trump 2020 sign was gone, but we learn about a “Local GAY teen (& dad) 4 Biden”:

Why isn’t the local GAY teen’s “mom” (or “daddy #2”?) also “4 Biden”?

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