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Desert Dog

Desert Dog's Journal
Desert Dog's Journal
February 5, 2024

Sinema Stalling to Spend Money

This seems to be good news. If Sinema was going to run, she would have jumped in and got that process going. Her hesitation seems proof that the hopelessness of the situation has reached her brain. She doesn't want to lose. If she runs and gets less than 10%, her political reputation is cooked. She is already the biggest political sell out in history. Hard to think of another politician that did a complete 180 in such a short time. She talks about what her constituents want but why care now? Her constituents wanted her to do public forums and she ran into the bathroom to avoid those.

So, she is stalling to use up the funds she has on travel and food perks. She is also probably trying to land the big fish - that will reward her handsomely for running for senate. If that doesn't happen, she will drift away. I don't see her being an effective lobbyist. Who takes her calls? Nobody on January 3rd. I don't see her as a tv personality. She is terrible on TV and spends most of her time running from journalists. Being a media figure requires real work and showing up almost every day. Hard to do that while she is shopping and dining out.

As far as the future, Sinema will run for national office someday, and then she can be the world class irritant she longs to be and tap into that leftover campaign money.

[link:https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1754173630580228137|

December 9, 2022

Sinema for President in 2024

Stick with me on this...

So she announces change to independent and avoids Democratic primary. Note that AZ registration numbers are @ 33% GOP, 31% Ind and 26% Democrat. So essentially, she traded 26% for 31% with the knowledge that she was despised by Democrats for the greatest political sell out in the history of American politics.

She COULD run for Senate in 24 and wreak havoc in the general. Note that AZ does not have +50% runoff.. So Dems nominate Gallego. GOP nominates Lake or Ducey. I still think we can win that as Sinema will perform exceptionally bad and get way less independent votes than she could have imagined. Lake is toxic as she now has a defining characteristic - sore loser. Ducey might be tough. Democrats might even do better with House member and former Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton instead of Ruben. If the goal is independent appeal and countering Lake, Stanton might have it.

The question is.. Is Sinema trying to win elections or screw Democrats? Would she march into senate race as independent if she was polling bad? Her losing by 30pt would kill her political career and embarrass her. Would she do this just for the chance to screw Democrats? AZ Dems will run someone for Senate. No way they bow out for traitor Sinema.

Which brings me to my thread title. Is she running for president? Should we be flooding her email encouraging her to run for Pres? Her ego is big enough. Could she be tired of state politics and crave national race? You KNOW she wants more TV time. She can't run for Senate and President. How would she hurt us the least in 2024? How does she run for president with no constituency and no organization? Even with corporate money, she is poor compared to more entrenched politicians.

I say we encourage her for pres race and talk it up. She will not be able to resist jumping in. Let's play her like she played us.

September 21, 2022

How Not to Run Public Access Audio for a Court Hearing

Wow. Had to laugh at phone audio problem at special master hearing today. Public access - audio only - was through a call in bank and listeners were responsible to mute their phones. What could go wrong?

1st mistake. What works for normal court business does not work for anything remotely close to increased profile. Method of delivery must be reconsidered strongly.

2nd mistake. Expect chaos. We shall call this the Baba Booey principle. Give a lot of people the chance to be idiots and they will surely oblige.

3rd mistake. You have to have a court rep listening to the stream and be ready to cut the feed at any time. This is just being responsible. You would hope they would test it first, but there is just no way to simulate the deluge.

This was a trap for court staff. They live in their own reality which is usually shielded from the political craziness outside. 500 callers is just not enough for a case like this. I would also argue that any phone bank software is not the right choice either. People were just saying "Mute the callers". It probably wasn't that simple. Typically these bridge line court phones are used for collaborating and that requires people have unmute capability by default. They are also usually not controlled by software. People just call in and they are live. This works almost always in regular court houses and was the way before Zoom and Covid.

Most of the video conferencing software like Zoom, Teams and GoTo Meeting have phone bank capabilities. As people call in, they appear in the software. NONE of these apps are made to handle 500 callers. Imagine being in that meeting and having a grid of 500 participants. Even if the phone bank can handle the calls, the operator will not be able to manage that meeting. Even having 50 people in a meeting can be crazy. Ask your kids.

If you need the phone bank, a better choice would be webinar software. These systems are built to push content and can handle thousands of callers. No chance of that audio cacophony that happened today - as all listeners are muted.

The real answer here was something closer to broadcasting. They should have set up a live audio stream on Youtube and let them handle the traffic. It is also imperative that the public access and participant access be clearly defined from the get go. Of course, in today's remote hearing world - it is common for participants to not be in the court room. The court staff has to establish that private meeting with participants and protect the heck out of that info. They could easily tell lawyers for one side, and the hack lawyers might turn around and release that info to their crazy supporters. Then they try to crash the meeting and the whole case gets delayed. They need to establish the public location for the stream - so it is known well in advance and people don't go hunting for alternates.

It is also super important that chaos does not keep the hearing from being available to the public. The conspiracy people will be the first people who say "what is the government hiding?"

June 25, 2022

Cancel recess and immediately take up a rape and incest bill

Democrats need to demonstrate how heinous this court action is. Right now. With Urgency. Even if we know it will fail, we hold everybody accountable. Keep the bill simple. No law should be made that prevents a woman from getting reproductive healthcare after rape or incest. She should not have to report the crime to police, but simply tell that to her doctor.

Start there. Make a huge carve out in these state laws. We need to wrap this around the GOP's neck. Two weeks of debate would help keep this from fading away in media spot light. It also counters GOP panic about possible demonstration violence. Puts them on the defensive.

The GOP does not even care about rape and incest! Shout it out loud. Making women carry babies as a result of crimes is not a state decision - it is slavery.

Also, if it fails.. it sets up an election issue and should we be so lucky to extend congressional control, we can justify unpacking the court of religious extremists.

Anybody else see the lunacy that the GOP killed the filibuster to put these loons on the court, but Democrats wont use the same tactic to counter their judicial activism? WTF. Ya.. Mancin and Sinema.. I look forward to the day the progress of the country is not stalled because of these corporate whores. I am sure they would be very disappointed and "misled" if McConnell is back in power and kills the filibuster.

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