Deus ex Machina
Forgive me if I’ve told you this story before. Years and years ago, my county bought new voting machines. Up until then, we voted scan-tron with paper ballots that could be hand counted if need be.
A lot of people who had lost money in a Coke machine weren’t too excited about computers with no paper trail and we raise a bunch of hell about there being no paper trail on the machines being considered. So, the county commissioners called a big meeting for the makers of the three machines being considered to explain how the machine worked and how safe they were.
After they explained them all and allowed us to use them in real time, they asked us to vote on which one we liked best. And how did they ask us to vote? They handed us a pencil and paper. Yeah, my point exactly. When I asked the geniuses on commissioner court why we weren’t voting on one of the machines, they replied, in that real sarcastic voice that county commissioners develop during their first month in office, that for sure someone would complain that the voting was rigged and they wanted proof. Yeah, someone replied, and the important lesson we learned here today is ….
We are finally getting new machines with a paper trail mainly because it got too damn embarrassing to say to new voters, “It works just like a rotary phone.”
Anyway, I started this story to tell you that we got troubles.
Pete Buttigieg’s campaign sent a letter to the Nevada State Democratic Party on Sunday, alleging that there are “material irregularities pertaining to the process of integrating early votes into the in-person precinct caucus results” and asking the party to take three concrete steps to address the purported issues.
With Trump firing a guy who says that Russia is interfering with our election and hiring one to say, “Premier Trump assures us that’s not happening,” I’m probably not the only one with a wary look on my face.
Look, I don’t think Bernie Sanders stole that election, and no matter what Chris Matthews says, I think it was legit. (By the way, don’t watch Chris Mathews – he’s a bore and you should be eating dinner with your family or good music or something.) But, this stuff is not helping anybody get excited about voting.
Give us a pencil and some paper and let us vote.
This. This right here is why I vote absentee. Here in Florida [probably everywhere, ftm] they mail you a paper ballot and you fill out the ovals and either mail or drive it in. Easy-peasy and there’s a paper trail.
And that ain’t all. Back when I used to schlep to the polls, there was inevitably some mandate or judge on the ballot I’d never heard of. And I was supposed to make an informed decision — how, exactly? Now I sit down at the computer with my ballot and a cuppa. I google everything and everyone before setting pen to that paper ballot.
Add to all that the fact that THIS IS FLORIDA, FOR GOD’S SAKE! The state that gave you G. W. Bush while his brother was governor here.
Now I’m not saying that was shady or anything – – – oh, hell, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Oh, and we gave you Pam Bondi, too. And Marco Rubio. And Prick Scott.
I could go on and on and on.
But people WILL just keep driving to the polls on election day and using those easily hackable machines. How does that make any sense at all?
1~ ~ ~ ~
And don’t even get me started about Chris I’m-in-love-with-my-own-voice Matthews. The guy who spends 2 minutes asking a question [giving his own opinion in the process] then interrupts his guests the moment they open their mouths.
Abd he has the gall to have, at the end of his show, a segment called, “Let Me Finish.” Seriously, Chris? You actually went there?
Ms. Juanita Jean Herownself, don’t know what Buttigieg is whining about this time, except maybe that he lost. He even lost to Amy Klobuchar. Fact is NV did vote with paper and pen. Our ballots are available for him, signed even including our phone numbers if Pete would like to give us a call to confirm we did not vote for him. Pence and Pete, just two of the Indiana products NV chose to reject along with the by products of their ‘safe’ nuclear energy. No Yucca Mountain for you, Indiana P. Jokes.
Wanna cry Pete? Call the NRP the organization that produced a ballot for the Republicon June 9, 2020 NV primary with no space at the top even acknowledging that 2020 is a presidential election year.
Magic Mike, just a suggestion, but the next time you hit Buttigieg hit him harder. He’s still whining.
2Shucks! White marbles and black marbles or any other kind of color. Assign the color to the candidate. Whoever gets the greatest number of the same color marbles wins. Yup! Thats where the “he’s got all his marbles” – or otherwise – came from. Then there’s that secret balloting thing available only to an elite group who lets you know the voting is over by the color of the smoke coming out of the chimney. As for paper and pencil, hell paper and crayon will do just fine!
3So lets see the permanent damage that is being done.
1) The Census is turning into a total fiasco. Hiring is lagging, methodology is still being discussed, thuglican political influence is running rampant and the redistricting required may either not have the necessary data and what data is available will be questionable at best.
2) Voting, and vote counting , is a wide open playground inviting one and all inside the system to play and manipulate at will.
With census in chaos the thuglicans will argue against any redistricting based upon unreliable data and the alternative is to just keep the system the way it is until next census in 2030.
Chris Matthews should be immediately fired in as humiliating way possible. He can take his mythical tip addled ronnie schtick onto the vaudeville circuit or better yet as an opening act at strip clubs.
4Even the questionable machines gave Trump three million fewer votes than Hillary in 2016. It was stupid human tricks, otherwise known as The Electoral College that used a counting methodology so old, it’s worse than paperless voting machines. (The Electoral College, where I visualize electors wearing t-shirts like John Belushi in Animal House, “COLLEGE”).
5Funny how Pete wasn’t whining about the PROVEN irregularities in Iowa.
6Must have something to do with the results.
With the case of “faithless electors” in the dishonorable scotus the move for The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), where states agree to support the national popular vote winner nit necessarily where their own state voted for, would appear to be on life support if not dead.
7The other issue is in cases such as Florida in 2000 where legislature directed its electors to vote for the twit no matter the results of a potential recount.
Will the dishonorable scotus allow a special carve out for thuglican legislators?
According to Sotomayer she could see her thuglican puppets she shares the bench with in supporting anything that their thuglican political masters order them to support.
Chris Matthews is a loud, obnoxious git, and I wouldn’t listen to him if he was the last person on earth. And Bill Maher. Two loud, obnoxious gits.
8Synonyms for git:
berk [British], booby, charlie (also charley) [British], cuckoo, ding-a-ling, ding-dong, dingbat, dipstick, doofus [slang], featherhead, fool, goose, half-wit, jackass, lunatic, mooncalf, nincompoop, ninny, ninnyhammer, nit [chiefly British], nitwit, nut, nutcase, simp, simpleton, turkey, yo-yo
(Am I right or am I right?)
9The classlessness of the upper class. ( $-{P>
Anand Giridharadas on Sanders’ Victory in Nevada: ‘A Wake Up Moment for the American Power Establishment’
Edit: Giridharadas called out MSNBC and other establishment forces for behaving “like out-of-touch aristocrats in a dying aristocracy.”
In an appearance on MSNBC Sunday morning just hours after Sen. Bernie Sanders’ decisive victory in the Nevada Democratic presidential caucus, author and political commentator Anand Giridharadas said the senator’s win could represent the dawn of “a new era in American life”
“You have someone talking about, in a way we have not heard, genuine deeper democracy, popular movements, human equality in a meaningful way, and a politics of love in the tradition of Dr. King—and winning elections,” Giridharadas said of Sanders. “I think this is a wake-up moment for the American power establishment, from Michael Bloomberg to those of us in the media to the Democratic Party to donors to CEOs.
Giridharadas emphasized that Sanders’ win is also a wake-up call for MSNBC, whose anchors and contributors spent much of Saturday evening melting down on live television over the prospect of the Vermont senator winning the Democratic presidential nomination.
“Why is a lobbyist for Uber and Mark Zuckerberg on the air many nights explaining a political revolution to us? Why is Chris Matthews on this air talking about the victory of Bernie Sanders, who had kin murdered in the Holocaust, and analogizing it to the Nazi conquest of France?”
“Are we going to get past the myth (that I’ve heard in some of this discussion) of the good billionaire versus the bad billionaire?”
***************************
Watch @AnandWrites’s drop-the-mic moment on AM Joy.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/23/anand-giridharadas-sanders-victory-nevada-wake-moment-american-power-establishment
10Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, attempted to explain the corporate media’s open hostility toward Sanders and his supporters in an appearance on CNN Saturday evening.
“I’m a relatively new person here at CNN,” said Rojas, who contributes to the network as a political commentator. “There are not a ton of people that are my age, or that look like me. Most of the people that sit in a lot of the most powerful rooms in the country pushing forward our news are… not the same level of class.”
“Even though it might not be, you know, literally some person pulling the strings,” Rojas said, “there is a worldview that is vastly different from the everyday voter.”
11K: I was an enumerator in the 2000 census, and a first line supervisor of enumerators in the 2010 census. They won’t even talk to me about working this one!
12And to top it off, rethuglicans in California are copying what the ones in Montana[?] did by sending what looks like a census form that’s actually Russian backed rethuglican publicity.
The thuglicans are mailing those bogus mailings across the country.
13I know of people who received one in Hawaii in December.
My advice, and what I did, was take mailer straight to the US Post Office and demend to make a fraud complaint.
When I did that they tried to tell me not to bother because they had already gotten a number of complaints. Not trying to protect thuglicans, though that is the result, but rather to cut down on paperwork etc about an ongoing criminal (mail fraud) activity.
I received a complaint # but lets flood the Postal service with these then demand action.
Of course with a paid off political hacks sitting on the bench these days they might just decide that this is just a legitimate campaign tactic for thuglicans.
thanks, good points,mattews,needs a new job, iowa needs a paper trail,and tough shit, Bernie won..seems in conversation with trumpers,i look like one,and drive a truck.(85% of truckers voted stupid into a job) seems they dont take to critics like me. but,when i cut loose,and explain that trumps a punk, and im from across the river in jersey,you dont trust assholes like him..they shutup..why? because someone actully sees trump,for who he is,and they actully know,hes like that. but being a whore for his own needs,well, they dont like hearing that..i get looks,but no comebacks. maybe they get a dose of retraction from someone who doesnt mince words,and actully can explain, supporting him,is the demise of yor democracy,and, if your so hot on the military and the ones who have fallen to defend your rights as a bigot,then may i add, they didnt die to see trump distroy our goverment,and our democray..trump and mcconnel are giving it away to the rich,wall street,and greed,and theres no second amendment,except in our,constitution,this vote in november,maybe your last one..if mcconnel has his way,and gets reelected,he will make a case,thats what the people want,me to allow wall street and its cronies to govern,whats left of our goverment….somehow they are putting the pieces together..i actully get to,walk away without being shot,…best wishes…paper trail of the courts may be in florida again..
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