ELECTION 2020

[Duchess]

We are in the election thread.

...and I thought I had trouble staying on topic. Pfft.

[BigMark]

Going to a party, the gift bags are a surprise.

[BigMark]

[Duchess]

That sounds fun! Presents! *applauds*

[Clang McFly]

We are in the election thread.

...and I thought I had trouble staying on topic. Pfft.

Why stay on topic? This election and the last one are shams of democracy.

[Duchess]

Agreed

[Duchess]

That's the 2^nd time today that I've quoted someone and it has disappeared from my post. WTF is up with that.

[BigMark]

Blah fucking blah blah blah.

[Clang McFly]

That's the 2^nd time today that I've quoted someone and it has disappeared from my post. WTF is up with that.

Its Trump's cronies in the NSA fucking shit up.

[Duchess]

Years ago LC came to me and said that someone from the Department of Homeland Security was reading Mock and finally one day I got to see it for myself. Blew my mind! We sorta told ourselves it was a janitor or something similar. There's no way in hell any relevant person in government is going to be lurking on Mock. 

[Clang McFly]

Years ago LC came to me and said that someone from the Department of Homeland Security was reading Mock and finally one day I got to see it for myself. Blew my mind! We sorta told ourselves it was a janitor or something similar. There's no way in hell any relevant person in government is going to be lurking on Mock. 

I don't know. I could see Trump joining Mock for a few minutes before his permaban.

[pyropappy]

Years ago LC came to me and said that someone from the Department of Homeland Security was reading Mock and finally one day I got to see it for myself. Blew my mind! We sorta told ourselves it was a janitor or something similar. There's no way in hell any relevant person in government is going to be lurking on Mock. 

The government has Cray supercomputers and sophisticated software, these search the net, text messages and phone calls for key words. If it finds one like: jihad, a real person is tasked to check it.

Utah Data Center

The NSA records and saves everything.

But they aren't spying on us, right....

Why is that unit titled "Domestic Surveillance Directorate?

[BigMark]

Great, you put us on the list.

[HairOfTheDog]

Iowa Caucuses



Tonight the real test for the 2020 Presidential candidates begins in Iowa.

Iowa voters will be gathering in their communities to discuss, debate, and choose their Democratic delegates.  In this 2020 election cycle, they are being asked to come prepared to select their first and second picks.  

If their first choice doesn’t get the support of 15 percent of the people in the room at an individual caucus, that candidate is considered nonviable, and the their votes will be allocated to their next second choice candidate.

(continued)

[HairOfTheDog]

Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar are expected to fair the best tonight.

While Iowa is not a very diverse or large delegate state, the results of the Iowa caucuses can be very helpful in setting positive momentum for candidates.

I didn't realize until this evening that in the last four Presidential elections, the Democratic candidate who won the Iowa caucuses also went on to win the Democratic Presidential Primary (Kerry, Obama, Obama, H. Clinton).  I don't know if that will be the case for 2020, but I'm sure it's something about which all the remaining candidates are keenly aware. 

The results will be in later this evening.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/us/po...dates.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...eg-updates
https://data.desmoinesregister.com/iowa-.../#2004/dem

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, it was a total clusterfuck in Iowa last night.  The Iowa Democratic Party looks amateurish and foolish.  

What a disappointment for the candidates and the voters in Iowa.  

After the Democratic presidential candidates (with the exception of Bloomberg) spent a lot of time, money and effort in attempt to gain momentum from winning the Iowa caucuses last night and take a victory lap before New Hampshire.....................the Iowa results which were supposed to take an hour to finalize/announce still aren't in. 

In attempt to streamline the tabulation process, the Iowa Democratic Party had introduced a secured/private mobile phone application for volunteer caucus chairpersons to send in their numbers just days before the caucuses.

However, it doesn't appear they conducted a pilot program or adequate user training.  The app reportedly wouldn't download for many of the caucus chairpersons and there were very few election workers to take the numbers by phone when they called the emergency hotline. It looks like they're still in the process of tabulating and reviewing the paper ballots.

(continued)

[HairOfTheDog]

So, the Democratic candidates who faired the best based on the early estimates did what they could; Klobuchar, Biden, Warren and Buttigieg all made quasi-victory speeches, packed their teams and their shit, and headed for New Hampshire (where paper ballots are fortunately still the standard).  

Hopefully, the Iowa caucuses won't be first in the nation moving forward and won't hold so much esteem.  Nothing against Iowa or the people there.

But, it's not a state that's demographically representative of most of the nation anyway and both the Iowa Democratic and Republican Parties have fucked up royally in recent elections (the Republican Party announced Romney as the the winner in 2012, only to turn around a couple of days later and announce they had miscalculated and Rick Santorum was the real winner).

[Maggot]

I don't believe the DNC wants Sanders in, their man is sleepy Joe and I don't put anything past them one bit. They may have had a hand in this app thing you just never know. They gave Hillary the debate questions once.

[HairOfTheDog]

Biden wasn't expected to win Iowa anyway; I don't think the snafu delay in tabulation and delegate assignment helps or hurts him and don't think it was some kind of conspiracy against Bernie.

I watched the caucus vote counts before going out last night.  It looked to me like Buttigieg was set to come in number one, followed by Bernie and then probably Warren.

Hopefully the results will be finalized soon and we'll see.  While the momentum of a same-night certain victory lap will have been lost, whoever is announced the winner will capitalize on it in other ways, I'm sure.

[Duchess]

It was the first one I paid attention to and I thought it was ridiculous & archaic. I say that as someone who doesn't know much of anything about it at all.