U.S. Electile Dementia paralytica 2020

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by xilman

You omitted the etymology of the word "politics" and, by extension, those terms derived from it such as politician.

It comes from the Greek "poly" which means "many", and from "ticks", which are blood-sucking parasites.

The word "candidate" also has an interesting and telling etymology:

ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Latin candidatus ‘white-robed,’ also denoting a candidate for office (who traditionally wore a white toga), from candidus ‘white.’

Uncoincidentally, the parasitic fungal strain Candida Albicans was named for the same Latin term, and even invokes a second Latin word for "white", in order to make abundantly clear the connection to political candidates, who strive to become members of the persistent fungal infection on society that is the political class.

[kladner]

Lyin' Biden's campaign website prattles on about Social Security being "in deficit" with $2.8 trillion in the trust fund. As always, the idea of removing the regressive cap on contributions to the the fund remains in the shadows, as even this otherwise-positive article fails to mention it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ts-future-2020

[Dr Sardonicus]

The sun having risen, the brand-new Iowa Caucus App, designed to get the vote counts tallied instantaneously, is about to be outpaced by carrier pigeons.

It will also soon be outpaced by people driving motor vehicles, then by men on horseback, then by twenty-mule-team wagons, then by tortoises.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.

-- Troilus and Cressida, Act 3, Scene 3

[kladner]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ratic-caucuses

The Democratic presidential primary contest has got off to a disastrous start after results from the highly anticipated Iowa Democratic caucuses were dramatically delayed due to “inconsistencies” in the reporting of the data.
The state’s Democratic party said it was performing “quality control” on the numbers “out of an abundance of caution”, after reports on Monday of problems with a phone app used to relay vote tallies.

Quality Control suggests "fixing" the results to make sure that the "wrong candidate" does not win. One guess who that wrong candidate is.
EDIT: Further information on the delay:

In a letter to the Iowa Democratic party obtained by the Guardian, lawyers for Biden’s campaign demanded “full explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control you are employing, and an opportunity to respond, before any official results are released”.

So the Biden campaign wants to preview results before they are published. I guess they expect not to like the voters' choices. Also, it is interesting that the phrase "quality control" appears in this letter, and that the same phrase is used in the Party's excuse for the delay. That phrase could have highly variable meanings, depending on who is doing the controlling of the quality.

[dcheuk]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

The sun having risen, the brand-new Iowa Caucus App, designed to get the vote counts tallied instantaneously, is about to be outpaced by carrier pigeons.

It will also soon be outpaced by people driving motor vehicles, then by men on horseback, then by twenty-mule-team wagons, then by tortoises.

-- Troilus and Cressida, Act 3, Scene 3

My colleagues have been criticizing this the whole day.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

The sun having risen, the brand-new Iowa Caucus App, designed to get the vote counts tallied instantaneously, is about to be outpaced by carrier pigeons.

Are you sure that's what it was designed to do?

Here is NC's roundup of the egg-on-face fiasco (I only hit today's stories there a few minutes ago, was busy finally sorting out software-package issues on my new Radeon VII card):

Iowa, Democrats, and Elite Incompetence | naked capitalism

On one level, this is an illustration of America’s descent into banana republic status. Pundits and the media keep reinforcing American exceptionalist fantasies, our brand fumes of vaunted democracy, yet we can’t even run elections competently. Is is just the grifting, that introducing more tech creates more opportunities for vendor enrichment? Or is it yet more proof that a lot of people in charge really hate democracy and are at best indifferent to doing things right?

It’s not hard to see the Iowa fiasco as an illustration of an even more deeply-seated pathology: elite incompetence. Too many people with the right resumes get to fail upwards or at worst sideways. And remember, unlike our older WASP-y leaders who were a combination of people from the right clubs and self-made men, our current crop of people in charge pride themselves on being the end products of a meritocratic system, as in their claim to legitimacy stems from the claim that they are more talented (gah) than mere mortals and therefore obviously should be in the top slots because they’ll do oh so much better than everyone else.

And it’s the Democratic party, as the representative of the 10% professional managerial classes, that really owns this disease. Recall in Thomas Frank’s Listen Liberal how he set forth, without irony, a conference that was treacly with the self-regard, with the way every participant was lavished with embarrassing exaggerations of their accomplishments. No one had the slightest sense of how narcissistic and pampered they seemed. And it wasn’t hard to imagine they’d all collapse in a heap if presented with a real challenge, like suddenly becoming destitute or being dumped in a remote area with neither a water bottle nor GPS.

And we keep seeing this leadership class succeed in rent extraction and not much else. Go down the list: The post-crisis failure to reform the banks or even go through the motions by incarcerating a few execs and turfing out some board members. Our grossly over-priced, underperforming health care system. Our student-impoverishing higher education system. The F-35. The botched Obamacare rollout. Our Middle-East nation-breaking, which has scored geopolitical own goals like destabilizing Europe, facilitating Russia asserting itself a geopolitical power despite having an economy the size of South Korea and in the face of our economic sanctions, and making us deservedly disliked around the world. Hillary Clinton losing to of all people Donald Trump despite spending twice as much as his campaign spend because her team was enamored of Robby Mook’s models and somehow forgot about the Electoral College.

And if you believe, as Team Dem does, that every problem can be solved with better PR, the corollary is you never admit to failure, you never do post mortems, and you keep incompetents around who you allow to fail and fail again.

A tweet quoted in that article, by former Matt Taibbi gonzo-journo buddy Mark Ames, addresses the "who is responsible for the Iowa #fail?" aspect in slightly more specific terms:

DNC hired one group of ex-Hillary staffers to design broken vote app that’s undermining confidence in integrity of Iowa vote count—and another group of ex-Hillary staffers policing social media for “disinformation” about integrity of Iowa vote count. Because Russia. https://t.co/xVSbx7xk0h

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) February 4, 2020

And a bit more background info on the source of the "vote smart and instant and for the right candidate" app:

Behind the app that delayed Iowa’s voting results is a dark money operation funded by anti-Sanders billionaires. @MaxBlumenthal looks at its top donor, Seth Klarman, a Buttigieg backer who has dumped money into pro-settler Israel lobby groups. https://t.co/IsE7TPsBrl

— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) February 4, 2020

Please read the whole thing - DNC staffers tweeting out login PINs, oh my.

Per the NYT, the app-development company has a very suitably chosen name:

App Used to Tabulate Votes Is Said to Have Been Inadequately Tested | NYTimes

The app used by the Iowa Democratic Party was built by Shadow Inc., a for-profit technology company that is also used by the Nevada Democratic Party, the next state to hold a caucus, as well as by multiple presidential campaigns. Shadow’s involvement was kept a secret by Democratic officials through the caucuses.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Are you sure that's what it was designed to do?
<snip>

No. Not at all. And I apologize for my carelessness. I never heard any claim it was actually so designed.

I should have said it was sold on the promise of getting the votes tallied instantaneously.

Dems in the Great State of Nevada seem suddenly to have lost their enthusiasm for adopting the app-based tallying system.

They could probably get the results in faster by resurrecting the Pony Express, which, alas, did not go through Iowa.

[kladner]

By Max Blumenthal -Greyzone

At the time of publication, twelve hours after voting in the Democratic Party’s Iowa caucuses ended, the results have not been announced. The delay in reporting is the result of a failed app developed by a company appropriately named Shadow Inc.

This firm was staffed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaign veterans and created by a Democratic dark money nonprofit backed by hedge fund billionaires including Seth Klarman. A prolific funder of pro-settler Israel lobby organizations, Klarman has also contributed directly to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign.

The delay in the vote reporting denied a victory speech to Sen. Bernie Sanders, the presumptive winner of the opening contest in the Democratic presidential primary. Though not one exit poll indicated that Buttigieg would have won, the South Bend, Indiana mayor took to Twitter to confidently proclaim himself the victor.

Iowa, you have shocked the nation.

By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious. #IowaCaucuses
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) February 4, 2020

[Brownfox]

The men on horseback have vanished over the horizon; the 20-mule team wagons look like they're going to join them. Only the tortoises stand between the Iowa Dems and an ignominious last place in the count. ...And the winner is - President Trump!

Seriously, what a mess. It's at times like this that the UK system of marking a piece of paper with a pencil and having them manually counted doesn't seem so bad.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Brownfox

Seriously, what a mess. It's at times like this that the UK system of marking a piece of paper with a pencil and having them manually counted doesn't seem so bad.

It works remarkably well for us.

Our view is that "if it aint broke, don't fix it".

The US system appears to an ignorant outsider to be based more on "if it aint broke, fix it until it is".

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by xilman

It works remarkably well for us.

Our view is that "if it aint broke, don't fix it".

The US system appears to an ignorant outsider to be based more on "if it aint broke, fix it until it is".

It's not ignorance, it's straight-up grifting [by the makers of what should probably be called "vote management" hardware/software] and election fraud on the part of the establishment 2-part duopoly. The Repugs seem to prefer gerrymandering and minority-voter suppression, whereas the Dims preferred form of corruption appears to be in choosing the party nominee(s): only warmongering neoliberals who will cater to the needs of the elite-looter class allowed. It will work until it doesn't. In 2016 the "doesn't" came in form of Trump, who represents a giant electoral middle finger to the corrupt elites by those "deplorables" their policies have immiserated. Having learned nothing from 2016, the same entrenched DNC corruptocrats are trying similar tricks, the question is, will the "doesn't" this time come in form of Bernie Sanders or a second term for Trump. At this point I predict that if the Dem nominee is anyone other than Sanders, Trump will win a second term. And I suspect the corrupt Dem elites are in fact perfectly happy with that - Trump's actual policies are not really dissimilar from those of Hillary, he's just more boorishly honest about things. It's like pro wrasslin' - the Rs are the 'heels' (and oh, what a heel they have in Trump), the Ds are the well-spoken 'faces', and all the hueing and crying in DC (RussiaRussiaRussia, ImpeachImpeachImpeach, etc) is just kayfabe. I mean, compare the linked page's description of Faces and Heels with current US politics:

Faces, short for "babyfaces", are hero-type characters whose personalities are crafted to elicit the support of the audience through traits such as humility, patriotism, a hard-working nature, determination, and reciprocal love of the crowd. Faces usually win their matches on the basis of their technical skills and are sometimes portrayed as underdogs to enhance the story.

Heels are villainous or antagonistic characters, whose personalities are crafted to elicit a negative response from the audience. They often embrace traditionally negative traits such as narcissism, egomania, unprompted rage, sadism, and general bitterness. Though not as prevalent today, xenophobic ethnic and racial stereotypes, in particular, those inspired by the Axis powers of World War II, were commonly used in North American wrestling as heel-defining traits.